Russia grants citizenship to Edward Snowden
New Delhi: Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on Monday granting Russian citizenship to former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.
Snowden was among 75 foreign nationals granted Russian citizenship, according to an order signed by the president.
Snowden, 39, escaped the US and was given refuge in Russia after leaking secret files in 2013 that uncovered vast domestic and international surveillance operations carried out by the US National Security Agency where he was a contractor.
US authorities have for quite a long time needed him to get back to the US to have to face a criminal trial on espionage charges.
The decree was published on an official government website. He was granted permanent residency in 2020 and said at the time that he planned to apply for Russian citizenship, without renouncing his U.S. citizenship.
Snowden’s lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena said, “the former contractor’s wife Lindsay Mills, an American who has been living with him in Russia, will also be applying for a Russian passport. The couple had a child in December 2020.”
Snowden, who has kept a low profile in Russia and occasionally criticized Russian government policies on social media, said in 2019 that he was willing to return to the US if he’s guaranteed a fair trial.
The charges against Snowden carry a prison sentence of up to 30 years.
The news reports from more than 7,000 classified documents uncovered the inner workings of a giant US government surveillance activity. Intelligence officials have recently said that Snowden might have taken 1.7 million classified files.
Putin, a former Russian spy chief, said in 2017 that Snowden, who keeps a low profile while living in Russia, was wrong to leak US secrets but was not a traitor.
(Vinayak)
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