Edward Snowden — the fugitive former U.S. intelligence contractor — appears to be stuck in Moscow, unable to leave without a valid American passport, according to interviews Sunday with two men who had sought to aid him: WikiLeaks' Julian Assange and Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa.
Snowden, 30, arrived at Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport last weekend, after previously taking refuge in Hong Kong. Moscow was only supposed to be a stopover. WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy organization, had said Snowden was headed on to Ecuador — whose leftist president has been critical of the United States — and that he would seek asylum there.
Now, however, both men said Snowden is unable to leave.
"The United States, by canceling his passport, has left him for the moment marooned in Russia," said Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, on ABC's "This Week With George Stephanopoulos." The United States canceled Snowden's passport last weekend. Assange criticized the United States, saying: "To take a passport from a young man in a difficult situation like that is a disgrace."
Correa spoke to the Associated Press in Puerto Viejo, Ecuador. For now, Correa told the AP, Snowden was "under the care of the Russian authorities."
"This is the decision of Russian authorities. He doesn't have a passport. I don't know the Russian laws, I don't know if he can leave the airport, but I understand that he can't," Correa said. He said that the case was now out of Ecuador's hands: "If [Snowden] arrives at an Ecuadoran Embassy, we'll analyze his request for asylum."
Snowden got from Hong Kong to Moscow by using a letter of safe passage from the Ecuadoran Embassy in London (where Assange himself has been holed up for a year, avoiding extradition to face sex-crimes charges in Sweden).
Snowden does not seem likely to get another such letter.
On Sunday, Correa told the AP that an Ecuadoran official at that embassy had committed "a serious error" by issuing the first letter without consulting officials back home. Correa said the consul would be punished, although he didn't specify how.
Correa's tone seemed to have shifted after a conversation with Vice President Biden on Friday. Where Correa had earlier been defiant, he now voiced respect for U.S. legal procedures.
"If he really could have broken North American laws, I am very respectful of other countries and their laws, and I believe that someone who breaks the law must assume his responsibilities," Correa said, according to the AP.
Snowden's escape plan — if it could be called a plan — was unlikely from the beginning.
After revealing himself as the leaker, he sought to hopscotch 12,000 miles from Hong Kong to Russia to Ecuador (perhaps by way of Cuba) — evading both U.S. law enforcement and the world's news media on a trip to the other side of the world.
Now, that plan seems to have led Snowden to a Russian airport terminal. And a shrinking set of options.
If he is not actually being detained by Russian authorities — and Russian officials have said that he is not — Snowden could continue to stay in the airport. Officially, he would not have entered Russia, since he would not have crossed passport control.
