Snowden thanks Russia for asylum: WikiLeaks

Agence France-Presse

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Fugitive US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden thanked Russia for granting him a year's asylum in a statement released by the WikiLeaks website

SNOWDEN REAPPEARS. A photo made available by Human Rights Watch shows former CIA employee-turned whistleblower Edward Snowden at the Sheremetyevo airport in Moscow 12 July 2013. EPA/Tanya Lokshina /Human Rights Watch handout

LONDON, United Kingdom – Fugitive US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden on Thursday, August 1, thanked Russia for granting him a year’s asylum in a statement released by the WikiLeaks website seen by AFP, and accused the US government of showing “no respect” for international law.

“Over the past eight weeks we have seen the Obama administration show no respect for international or domestic law, but in the end the law is winning,” Snowden said in his first public remarks since leaving Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport.

“I thank the Russian Federation for granting me asylum in accordance with its laws and international obligations.”

Snowden, who is wanted on felony charges by the United States after leaking details of vast US surveillance programmes, finally left the airport Thursday after spending more than five weeks there after he arrived from Hong Kong.

WikiLeaks said he left in the company of the whistleblowing website’s legal adviser Sarah Harrison, who had remained with him throughout his stay at the airport, and that the pair were heading to “a secure, confidential place”.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange described Snowden’s successful asylum bid as a victory in its fight against US President Barack Obama’s “war on whistleblowers”.

“The United States can no longer continue the surveillance of world citizens and its digital colonization of sovereign nations,” Assange said in the statement.

“The public will no longer stand for it. Whistleblowers will continue to appear until the government abides by its own laws and rhetoric.”

WikiLeaks, which has like Snowden enraged the US government by publishing hundreds of thousands of confidential documents, thanked staff at the airport for accommodating Snowden and Harrison. – Rappler.com

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