MOSCOW: Former US spy agency contractor Edward Snowden has not yet formally accepted asylum in Venezuela, the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks said yesterday after a Russian lawmaker posted a statement to that effect on Twitter and then deleted it.
WikiLeaks, on its own Twitter feed, said that states involved in deciding an asylum destination for Snowden, who fled the United States last month, “will make the announcement if and when the appropriate time comes”.
Snowden, who is wanted in the United States on espionage charges after revealing details of secret surveillance programmes, is believed to be holed up in the transit area at a Moscow airport where he arrived on June 23 from Hong Kong.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro earlier said that he had decided to offer the 30-year-old American asylum. Nicaragua and Bolivia also have said they would take in Snowden, who has appealed to about 20 countries for political asylum.
Alexei Pushkov, the pro-Kremlin chairman of the international affairs committee in the lower house of parliament, tweeted that Snowden had accepted Venezuela’s asylum offer, but the tweet swiftly disappeared. He later tweeted that he had seen the news on state-run Russian television channel Rossiya-24, but a representative of Rossiya-24 said it had been referring to Pushkov’s initial tweet.
“Edward #Snowden has not yet formally accepted asylum in Venezuela,” WikiLeaks, whose British legal researcher Sarah Harrison is assisting Snowden and travelled to Moscow with him, later said on Twitter.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Snowden should choose a final destination and go there as soon as possible, but it is unclear how he would get to any of the Latin American countries that have offered him asylum.
Bolivia has accused Spain, France, Portugal and Italy of closing their skies to President Evo Morales’ plane last week after being told it was carrying Snowden from Moscow to Bolivia.
Agencies
