NSA leaksRussia grants Snowden a 1-year temporary refugee status
Edward Snowden has left Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport and has entered Russia after he had been granted temporary asylum – the official language: a temporary refugee status — for one year. It is not yet known whether Snowden’s plan is to stay in Russia permanently, or whether he will try to move on to one of the four Latin American countries — Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Ecuador – which last month had offered him asylum. U.S. lawmakers said Russia’s decision had damaged U.S.-Russian relations, and the White House hinted that President Obama may cancel a planned summit meeting with Putin in Moscow in September.
Anatoly Kucherena, lawyer for Edward Snowden, said his client has left Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport and has entered Russia.
Kucherena said Snowden had been granted temporary asylum – the official language: a temporary refugee status — for one year.
The temporary refugee status allows Snowden to move freely within the country and is valid for one year, Kucherena told the New York Times.
The Guardian reports that it is not yet known whether Snowden’s plans to stay in Russia permanently,
as Kucherena recently suggested, or whether he will try to move on to one of the four Latin American countries — Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Ecuador – which last month had offered him asylum.
Kucherena said: “We have won the battle — now the war.”
He refused to offer details about where Snowden is, or where he plans to stay while in Russia: “He is the most wanted man on planet earth. What do you think he is going to do? He has to think about his personal security. I cannot tell you where he is going,” he said.
The reaction in the United States signaled a rocky road ahead for U.S.-Russia relations. Senator Robert Menendez (D-New Jersey), chair of the Senate Foreign Relations committee, said Snowden was a “fugitive who belongs in a United States courtroom.”
“Edward Snowden will potentially do great damage to U.S. national security interests, and the information he is leaking could aid terrorists and others around the world who want to do real harm to our country,” Menendez said. “Russia must return Snowden to face trial at home.”
Menendez added that the episode had damaged U.S.-Russian relations.
Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) tweeted to point out the contradiction between Snowden’s ideals of free and open society and the practices of the Russian government.
Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) two weeks ago said the United States should consider boycotting the upcoming Winter Games, to be held in Sochi, Russia, in February 2014, if Russia grants Snowden asylum.
“I love the Olympics, but I hate what the Russian government is doing throughout the world,” Graham said. “If they give asylum to a person who I believe has committed treason against the United States, that’s taking it to a new level.”
Secretary of State John Kerry said in June that Russia was defying international convention by allowing the fugitive to remain unhindered in the transit zone.
“There are standards of behavior between sovereign nations,” Kerry said. “There is common law. There is respect for rule of law.”
The White House has last week signaled that President Obama may cancel a planned summit meeting in Moscow in September.
Russian officials tried to minimize the importance of the case, saying ties between Russia and the United States would not suffer because of the “relatively insignificant” Snowden case.
Kucherena also said that yesterday’s Guardianstory revealing a top secret National Security Agency (NSA) program allowing analysts to search with no prior authorization through databases containing e-mails, online chats, and the browsing histories of millions of individuals was based on documents given to the Guardian before Snowden agreed to stop leaking, a key condition of his asylum offer from Russia.
Vladimir Putin had previously said he would be welcome only if he stopped “his work aimed at bringing harm” to the United States – “as strange as that sounds coming from my mouth.”
