MOSCOW: Russia granted American fugitive Edward Snowden a year’s asylum yesterday, allowing the former US spy agency contractor to slip quietly out of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport after more than five weeks in limbo but angering Washington.
The White House, which wants Snowden sent home to face trial for leaking details of government surveillance programmes, signalled that President Barack Obama might boycott a summit with President Vladimir Putin in Moscow in September and one official said high-level talks next week were “up in the air”. “We see this as an unfortunate development and we are extremely disappointed by it,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said. “We are evaluating the utility of the summit.”
Snowden, who landed from Hong Kong on June 23, left the transit area where he had been holed up. Almost unnoticed, he was driven away from the airport by car. “Over the past eight weeks we have seen the Obama administration show no respect for international or domestic law but in the end the law is winning,” Snowden, whose first leaks were published two months ago, was quoted as saying by the WikiLeaks anti-secrecy group which has assisted him.
State TV images showed Snowden’s document, similar to a Russian passport, and that he had been granted asylum for a year from July 31. Reuters
