US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden (C) has told rights activists he will seek asylum in Russia. Source: AAP
RUSSIA has been weighing whether to grant asylum to fugitive US leaker Edward Snowden after he told activists he wanted sanctuary in the country, a move that would risk further straining its ties with Washington.
Snowden on Friday dramatically summoned activists to the transit zone of Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport where he has been marooned without a valid passport for the last three weeks after arriving on a flight from Hong Kong.
The United States wants the former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor extradited back home to face justice over his leaking of sensational details about US surveillance activities, a demand Moscow has so far rejected.
Snowden, 30, making his first publicised appearance since arriving in Moscow, told the activists he wanted to claim asylum in Russia until he could safely travel to win permanent sanctuary in Latin America.
"I ask for your assistance in requesting guarantees of safe passage ... in securing my travel to Latin America, as well as requesting asylum in Russia until such time as ... my legal travel is permitted," Snowden told the activists at the meeting.
He said the asylum request was being made on Friday night although Russian officials have yet to confirm that they have received it.
The almost surreal meeting saw the group of less than a dozen activists arrive at the airport to be surrounded by a huge crowd of journalists. They were then ushered away by an airport official clutching a sign labelled "G9" to a secure area to meet the hitherto invisible fugitive.
Those invited, who received a personal email from Snowden sent on Thursday night, included representatives of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch as well as prominent Moscow lawyers.
"He is not a phantom, he is a live human being," commented Russian lawyer Genri Reznik after meeting Snowden, who had not been sighted before at all since arriving at the airport.
Russian state television broadcast footage shot from a mobile phone of the meeting, which showed Snowden reading out a statement while flanked by a staffer from the WikiLeaks anti-secrecy website, Sarah Harrison, and a woman interpreter.
He appeared well and spoke confidently.
"We walked in and there he was: Mr Snowden waiting for us," said Tanya Lokshina, senior researcher at HRW in Moscow in a blog on the group's website. "The first thing I thought was how young he looks - like a school kid."
Curiously, Snowden had last week withdrawn a request for asylum in Russia after President Vladimir Putin insisted he could stay only if he stopped releasing information that harmed the United States.
At the half-hour meeting with activists, Snowden vowed he did not want to harm the United States but it was not clear whether this meant he was prepared to stop leaking in order to stay in Russia.
Although several leftist Latin American states have indicated a readiness to host him, Snowden said at the meeting that Western governments would prevent him from travelling there.
In an indication that Snowden's new application may be viewed positively, the speaker of Russia's lower house of parliament Sergei Naryshkin and the upper house speaker Valentina Matviyenko both swiftly said his request should be accepted.
Naryshkin, a powerful ally of Putin who used to head the Kremlin administration, said that Snowden was a "defender of human rights" who risked facing the "death penalty" if he was sent back to the United States.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the conditions for Snowden claiming asylum were the same as before.
But the US has already rebuked China for allowing Snowden to leave for Russia from Hong Kong and Moscow would risk incurring the wrath of Washington should it dare offer him asylum.
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