MOSCOW: Several countries rushed to reject asylum requests from fugitive US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden yesterday after he sought safe haven in 21 nations in a bid to win protection from American authorities.
Most European countries either flatly rejected the request or reacted coolly. But the leftist leaders of Venezuela and Bolivia rose to the 30-year-old’s defence and said they would consider the application under the right conditions.
Snowden found particular support in Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela — a long-term thorn in the side of the US.
“What he did was reveal a big truth so that we could avoid a war,” Maduro said during a two-day visit to Moscow for an energy summit.
But Maduro refused to entertain speculation he might take Snowden on a plane with him from Moscow — a possibility raised both by Russian media and political observers of the explosive case.
Bolivian President Evo Morales also said his country was willing to consider giving Snowden asylum.
Poland immediately rejected Snowden’s petitions while an Indian foreign ministry spokesman said there was “no reason to accede to the request.”
The Netherlands also said “no” while Brazil said it was “not going to respond.”
And a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin said Snowden himself had decided to scrap his petition with Moscow — where he has been stranded in an airport transit zone since June 23 — after the Kremlin chief said he wanted him to stop releasing damaging allegations about the US.
“He abandoned his intention and his request to receive the chance of staying in Russia,” Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
The WikiLeaks anti-secrecy website — its associate Sarah Harrison travelling with the former National Security Agency contractor — said he had sent out applications to 13 European countries as well as six Latin American nations along with China and India.
A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman in Beijing said: “I’ve seen some reports of his petition for political asylum in some countries but I have no information about that.”
Austria, Finland, Iceland and Norway confirmed they had each received the request but the petition was invalid because it was not filed from inside their respective countries.
Ireland and Spain issued similar statements. AFP
