Snowden awaits father’s visit in Russia: lawyer

The US fugitive Edward Snowden has acquired registration at an address in Russia and his father, lawyer and friends are in the process of obtaining Russian visas, his lawyer said Tuesday.

“Yesterday I sent an invitation to Snowden’s father, to his US lawyer and to the friends that Edward asked for,” Snowden’s lawyer Anatoly Kucherena told Kommersant FM radio station.

“The invitation has gone off, we are waiting for the visas to be processed.”

The former National Security Agency analyst is living at an unknown location after Russia granted him temporary asylum for a year. He is wanted by the US for leaking details of vast Internet and telephone surveillance programmes.

He last week slipped out of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport, where he had spent more than a month awaiting asylum, accompanied by a staff member of WikiLeaks whistleblowing website, Sarah Harrison.

Snowden now has registered at an address — a legal requirement for foreign visitors to Russia — Kucherena said, while declining to reveal any details of his new address.

“He has registered” he told the Interfax news agency. “Today he is living on the territory of Russia.”

Kucherena said that Snowden would probably consult his father on what to do with his new life in Russia.

“When his father, lawyer, friends come, I think all the important questions on his daily life and accommodation will be discussed,” he told Kommersant FM.

Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov on Tuesday in an interview with Interfax slammed the United States for questioning whether US President Barack Obama would now meet President Vladimir Putin in Moscow in early September.

Ryabkov accused the United States of “blowing up the situation with Snowden,” insisting that Russia had avoided involvement in his case “beyond the absolutely humanitarian aspect.”

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Elias Jaua on Tuesday reaffirmed his asylum offer to Snowden in an interview with Russian-based RT television network.