Snowden's asylum efforts receive widespread rejection

Many of the 21 countries to which fugitive US whistle-blower Edward Snowden has applied for asylum said on Tuesday they had or would reject his requests because he was not on their territory.

The 30-year-old former intelligence contractor, whose US passport has been revoked, has been camped out for more than a week in the transit area of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport.

He is seeking to avoid extradition to the United States on espionage charges over his leaking of details about wide-ranging US surveillance programmes.

Authorities in Ireland, Finland, Norway, France, Germany, Spain and Austria said asylum requests could not be made from outside their countries.

Whistle-blowing website Wikileaks, which has taken up Snowden’s cause, said the applications were submitted late on Sunday by the group’s lawyer, Sarah Harrison, to an official at the Russian consulate at the airport.

Russia, one of the 21 countries, said Snowden had withdrawn his application after Moscow said it would only be granted on condition he stop leaking US classified information and damaging “our American partners.” A Polish Foreign Ministry spokesman said the country had “no interest” in offering Snowden asylum, while India said it saw “no reason to accede to the request.” Italy and Ecuador – which is sheltering Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in its London embassy – said they could only consider the request if Snowden entered one of their respective embassies.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who was visiting Moscow, avoided responding to reporters in the Russian capital who asked if he would take Snowden back with him.

“What we will take with us is numerous agreements, which we will sign with Russia, particularly in oil and gas,” Itar Tass news agency quoted him as saying.

China declined to comment on the request. Wu Qiang, a political analyst at Beijing’s Tsinghua University, said it was technically possible, but politically unlikely, that the request would be granted.

Snowden has applied to Switzerland – which said it had not yet received a request - and Brazil, Bolivia, Cuba, Iceland, the Netherlands and Nicaragua, according to Wikileaks.

Asylum request to Ecuador

President Rafael Correa of Ecuador said his country had erred in giving Snowden a temporary travel document to allow him to travel from Hong Kong to Moscow.

“It was a mistake on our part,” Correa told the Guardian newspaper. “Look, this crisis hit us in a very vulnerable moment. Our foreign minister was touring Asia. Our deputy foreign minister was in the Czech Republic. Our US ambassador was in Italy.” The Ecuadorean consul in London had issued the document “in his desperation, probably he couldn’t reach the foreign minister,” Correa said.

Quito would not issue documents to help Snowden leave Moscow, Correa said, making clear that the former spy was now Russia’s responsibility. Ecuador would only consider an asylum request made on its own soil, he said.

By contrast, Snowden praised Ecuador’s “bravery” in a letter written in Spanish to Correa and leaked late on Monday.

He expressed to the Ecuadorean leader “deep respect for your principles and sincere thanks for your government’s action in considering my request for political asylum.” “There are few world leaders who would risk standing for the human rights of an individual against the most powerful government on earth, and the bravery of Ecuador and its people is an example to the world,” he wrote.

US pressurising countries

Snowden accused the US of launching an “extrajudicial manhunt” against him and, in a separate statement released by Wikileaks, said that President Barack Obama was pressuring countries to which he had made asylum applications.

“The Obama administration has now adopted the strategy of using citizenship as a weapon,” Snowden said.

US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki rejected the characterisations of the US as bullying other countries not to take in Snowden. She stressed his passport had been revoked as part of standard procedure for suspects wanted on felony charges and that his citizenship had not been removed.

Snowden’s father, Lon Snowden, wrote through his lawyer to his son, comparing him to the patriots of the American Revolution against England and praising him for “summoning the American people to confront the growing danger of tyranny and one-branch government.”

Allegations by Snowden of US National Security Agency spying on European Union countries have strained relations between Washington and Brussels, just as talks were to be launched on a landmark US-EU trade deal.

The European Commission’s 28 commissioners said, “The beginning of the EU-US trade negotiation should not be affected,” spokeswoman Pia Ahrenkilde said after officials discussed the issue at their weekly meeting.

The commission is to represent the EU in the trade negotiations, which are due to get underway on Monday.

“The EU side will make it clear that for such a comprehensive and ambitious negotiation to succeed, there needs to be confidence, transparency and clarity among the negotiating partners,” Ahrenkilde said, adding that the US needs to clarify if it spied on Europeans.

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