Published: 2013 August 01 14:57:04 (4708 Views)

Edward Snowden, the fugitive former U.S. security contractor, left the transit zone at Moscow's international airport Thursday after receiving permission from the Kremlin to enter Russian territory.

Anatoly Kucherena, an attorney for Snowden, said documents allowing Snowden to live in Russia while his application for permanent political asylum is pending were issued Thursday.

Snowden, 30, had been stranded in Russia's Sheremetyevo Airport for more than five weeks.

Lon Snowden says he does not believe his son will ever get fair treatment from the U.S. government for revealing intelligence secrets.

"I have just seen him off. He has left for a secure location," Kucherena told the state broadcaster Russia 24.

Kucherena described Snowden as "the most wanted man on the planet" and said he "needed time to adapt to Russian realities."

Snowden left Sheremetyevo in a taxi Thursday afternoon, eluding reporters who have camped at the airport since he arrived June 23 on a flight from Hong Kong.

Kucherena did not reveal where Snowden was bound, saying that although he was ready to provide advice, it was up to his client to decide where to live.

The lawyer said arrangements are being made for Snowden's father to visit him in Russia, the Associated Press reported.

In an interview with The Washington Post on Tuesday, Lon Snowden said he was eager to speak with his son but had refused an FBI offer to fly him to Moscow while his son was trapped at the airport, because U.S. authorities could not guarantee that the two would be able to meet.

"If he comes back to the United States, he is going to be treated horribly," Lon Snowden said. "He is going to be thrown into a hole. He is not going to be allowed to speak."

Snowden is wanted in the United States for leaking classified documents about telephone and e-mail surveillance programs. The documents issued Thursday will allow Snowden to live in Russia for up to one year, the lawyer said.

U.S. authorities repeatedly asked Russia to turn Snowden over to them so that he could be prosecuted for leaking the documents, and Secretary of State John F. 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 behaviour between sovereign nations," Kerry said. "There is common law. There is respect for rule of law."

Russian President Vladimir Putin, however, said he saw no reason for Russia to extradite Snowden to the United States.

He said that for Snowden to remain in Russia, he would have to refrain from releasing information that is damaging to the United States.

Putin added that the case should not be allowed to damage Russian-U.S. ties.

"If he wants to stay here, there is one condition," Putin said July 1. "He has to stop his work undermining our U.S. partners, as odd as it may sound coming from me."

The Guardian newspaper on Wednesday published a new report on U.S. intelligence-gathering based on information from Snowden, but Kucherena said the material was provided before Snowden promised to stop leaking, the Associated Press reported.

Nicaragua, Bolivia and Venezuela have offered Snowden refuge, but pressure from Washington and concerns that the United States or Europe might block him from traveling through their airspace — his U.S. passport has been revoked — have prevented him from leaving Russia.

Yuri Ushakov, a Kremlin official, told reporters Thursday that the "relatively insignificant case" of Snowden would not harm ties between Russia and the United States.

There was no sign that President Obama would cancel a planned trip to Moscow in September, he added.

- WashingtonPost

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