No Travel Documents Issued for Snowden, Ecuador Says

Edward Snowden, 29, a former CIA employee is the person behind the latest security leak in the US. Photo by EPA/BGNES

Еcuador’s Foreign Ministry has declared that his country has not issued any travel document for fugitive former CIA employee Edward Snowden.

“This is untrue. No Ecuadorean consulate has ever issued a passport or other document [to Snowden],” said Galo Galarza, who is filling for the country’s Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino.

Patino said in a Twitter message earlier in the day that that his government could take “a day, a week, a month or even two months as it was in [Julian] Assange’s case” to decide on whether to grant an asylum for Snowden.

Patino said earlier that Snowden, who is wanted by the United States for disclosing a top-secret surveillance program that allegedly targeted millions of Americans, had requested a political asylum in his country.

Meanwhile, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said Snowden is “almost sure” to get a political asylum in his country if he files a formal request, RIA Novosti informs.

Snowden took a plane from Hong Kong on Sunday. After two days of intense media speculation about his whereabouts, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that he was in the transit area of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport.

The head of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Robert Menendez, warned Ecuador that it might lose its preferential trade status if it offers an asylum to Snowden. He also called on Russia to stop sheltering the fugitive.

According to RIA Novosti, a member of the Russian Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights, Kirill Kabanov, said he had requested his colleagues to consider asking the Russian leadership to grant a political asylum to Snowden.

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