Does Edward Snowden’s Flight From Hong Kong Make Him A Defector? Asylum Seeker? Fugitive Whistleblower?
The Kremlin said Monday that it won’t intervene in the case of former U.S. government contractor Edward Snowden and that Russia had no advance knowledge of his arrival from Hong Kong on Sunday.
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Reuters
A picture of Edward Snowden on a Chinese news website in Beijing.
President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that a decision about holding Mr. Snowden and sending him back to the U.S. to face charges wasn’t a matter for the Kremlin.
“It is not a question for us,” Mr. Peskov told The Wall Street Journal. “We don’t know what his plans are and we were unaware he was coming here.”
Russian state media, citing an official in the government’s security apparatus, said authorities have no legal grounds to detain and send Mr. Snowden back to the U.S.
This is like the old movie “White Night”, American style.