MOSCOW: Former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden has asked Moscow to extend his asylum in Russia, his lawyer said yesterday.
Russia granted Snowden a one-year visa in August 2013 despite the United States wanting Moscow to send him home to face criminal charges, including espionage, for disclosing secret US Internet and telephone surveillance programmes.
“We have carried out the procedure of getting temporary asylum. It expires on July 31,” Interfax news agency quoted Snowden’s Russian lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, as saying.
“Correspondingly, we have filed documents to extend his stay on the territory of Russia.”
REUTERS
