Sunday Times 2
Venezuela offers Edward Snowden hope of asylum
View(s):MOSCOW, July 6(AFP) -US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden remained stranded in a Moscow airport for the 14th day Saturday amid rising hopes he may finally be able to leave Russia after being offered asylum by Venezuela.
Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro said on Friday he had decided to offer asylum to former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden (REUTERS)
The saga surrounding the fugitive former US National Security Agency (NSA) contractor took a new turn late Friday when Venezuela’s leftist President Nicolas Maduro offered to grant the 30-year old “humanitarian asylum.” Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega had only moments earlier also said his Latin American country could offer a safe haven for one of Washington’s most wanted men “if circumstances permit.”Snowden had earlier been denied asylum by many of the 21 countries to which he had applied last week.
The WikiLeaks anti-secrecy website that has been supporting Snowden’s cause said he had recently applied to six additional countries that it refused to name.
But it was far from clear how exactly Snowden could reach another nation from the transit zone of Russia’s sprawling Sheremetyevo international airport.
He has been stripped of his passport by the US authorities and a refugee pass initially believed to have been offered to him by Ecuador has since been declared invalid.
Snowden could only take flights from Sheremetyevo and not another Moscow airport to which visiting foreign dignitaries such as Maduro have access because he cannot move beyond Russian passport control.
Analysts meanwhile said Moscow may be increasingly concerned about getting sucked into a diplomatic spat with Washington that it had never planned for and which it would rather avoid.
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