NAANTALI, Finland: Russian President Vladimir Putin says that National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden is in the transit zone of a Moscow airport and will not be extradited to the United States.
Putin said that Snowden hasn’t crossed the Russian border and is free to go anywhere.
Speaking on a visit to Finland Tuesday, he added that Russian security agencies “didn’t work and aren’t working” with Snowden. He gave no more details.
Commenting on a US request to extradite him, Putin said that Russia doesn’t have an extradition agreement with the US and thus wouldn’t meet the US request.
He voiced hope that Snowden will depart as quickly as possible and that his stopover at Moscow’s airport wouldn’t affect bilateral ties.
Russia’s foreign minister bluntly rejected US demands to extradite National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, saying Tuesday that Snowden hasn’t crossed the Russian border.
Sergey Lavrov insisted that Russia has nothing to do with Snowden or his travel plans. Lavrov wouldn’t say where Snowden is, but he lashed out angrily at Washington for demanding his extradition and warning of negative consequences if Moscow fails to comply. US Secretary of State John Kerry has urged Moscow to “do the right thing” and turn over Snowden.
“We consider the attempts to accuse Russia of violating US laws and even some sort of conspiracy, which on top of all that are accompanied by threats, as absolutely ungrounded and unacceptable,” Lavrov said. “There are no legal grounds for such conduct by US officials.”
The defiant tone underlined the Kremlin’s readiness to challenge Washington at a time when US-Russian relations are strained over Syria and a Russian ban on adoptions by Americans.
US and Ecuadorean officials said they believed Snowden was still in Russia. He fled there Sunday from Hong Kong, where he had been hiding out since his disclosure of the broad scope of two highly classified US counterterror surveillance programs. The programs collect vast amounts of Americans’ phone records and worldwide online data in the name of national security.
Kerry said Tuesday that although the United States does not have an extradition treaty with Russia, he called on Moscow to comply with common law practices between countries where fugitives are concerned.
“I would simply appeal for calm and reasonableness. We would hope that Russia would not side with someone who is ‘a fugitive’ from justice,’ ” Kerry said at a news conference in Saudi Arabia.
Lavrov claimed that the Russian government found out about Snowden’s flight from Hong Kong only from news reports.
“We have no relation to Mr. Snowden, his relations with American justice or his travels around the world,” Lavrov said. “He chooses his route himself, and we have learned about it from the media.”
Snowden booked a seat on a Havana-bound flight from Moscow on Monday en route to Venezuela and then possible asylum in Ecuador, but he didn’t board the plane. Russian news media have reported that he has remained in a transit zone of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport, but journalists there haven’t seen him.
A representative of WikiLeaks has been traveling with Snowden, and the organization is believed to be assisting him in arranging asylum. The organization’s founder, Julian Assange, said Monday that Snowden was only passing through Russia and had applied for asylum in Ecuador, Iceland and possibly other countries.