Snowden asks Russia for temporary asylum
MOSCOW — Former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden submitted a request for temporary asylum in Russia on Tuesday, his lawyer said, claiming he faces persecution from the U.S. government and could face torture or execution.
WikiLeaks, the secret-spilling site that has been advising Snowden, and Russia’s Federal Migration Service both confirmed the application request. The service is required by law to consider the application within three months but could do it faster.
Snowden, who revealed details of a U.S. intelligence program to monitor phone and Internet activity, argued in his application that the reason he needs asylum is “he faces persecution by the U.S. government and he fears for his life and safety, fears that he could be subjected to torture and capital punishment,” lawyer Anatoly Kucherena said on Rossiya 24 television.
He is charged with unauthorized communication of national defense information, willful communication of classified communications intelligence information and theft of government property. The first two are under the Espionage Act and each of the three crimes carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison on conviction.
Kucherena said he met the former National Security Agency systems analyst in the transit zone of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport to give him legal advice and that Snowden made the request after the meeting.
Snowden has been stuck there since he arrived on a flight from Hong Kong on June 23. He has had offers of asylum from Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia, but because his U.S. passport has been revoked, the logistics of reaching whichever country he chooses are complicated.
He said Friday at an airport meeting with Russian human-rights activists and public figures, including Kucherena, that he would seek at least temporary refuge in Russia until he could fly to one of the Latin American nations that have offered him asylum.
The temporary asylum would allow Snowden to freely travel and work in Russia, Kucherena said. He chose to apply for temporary asylum and not political asylum because the latter takes longer to consider.
Kucherena added that Snowden said he had no immediate plans to leave Russia. According to Russian law, temporary asylum is provided for a period of one year and could be extended each year.
Snowden previously had sought Russian asylum, which President Vladimir Putin said Russia would grant only if Snowden agreed not to leak more information. Snowden then withdrew the request, the Kremlin said.
During Friday’s meeting in the transit zone, Snowden argued that he hadn’t hurt U.S. interests in the past and has no intention of doing that. Putin did not say Monday whether that would be sufficient grounds for asylum.
While Snowden has voiced his agreement with Putin’s condition, he has made “no confirmation of that in writing,” presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday, according to the Interfax news agency.
In Washington, White House spokesman Jay Carney said he was unaware of any communications between the United States and Russia regarding Snowden.
“Our position on this remains what it was,” he said. “Our interest has always been in seeing him expelled from Russia and returned to the United States.”
Meanwhile, environmental and human-rights activists, church leaders and gun-rights advocates found common ground Tuesday, filing a lawsuit against the federal government to halt the electronic surveillance program that Snowden revealed.
The lawsuit was filed in federal court in San Francisco by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is representing the plaintiffs, a coalition of 19 groups that represents about 900,000 people.
It seeks an injunction against the National Security Agency, the Justice Department, the FBI and directors of the agencies, and challenges what the plaintiffs describe as an “illegal and unconstitutional program of dragnet electronic surveillance.” Information for this article was contributed by Raphael Satter, Jim Kuhnhenn, John Heilprin and Martha Mendoza of The Associated Press.