Russia has granted US whistleblower Edward Snowden permanent residency rights who has been living there since he exposed the NSA.
Russia has granted US whistleblower Edward Snowden permanent residency rights who has been living there since he exposed the NSA.
Snowden’s lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena confirmed that his client received notification from the government that his application to remain in the country indefinitely and unconditionally has been approved.
“We submitted the documents in April and we got the permanent residency rights (on Thursday),” said Kucherena.
Kucherena said the global COVID-19 pandemic had made the process for Snowden’s application longer than usual.
Russia gave Snowden, 37, asylum in 2013 after the former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor exposed mass surveillance by U.S. intelligence agencies around the world.
US authorities have pursued Snowden to make him face a criminal trial on espionage charges.
Last month, a Virgina federal judge ordered Snowden to return $4.2 million in profits he earned from “Permanent Record,” his tell-all memoir about his work as an NSA contractor because he did not submit the manuscript for government review before publishing it.
Kucherena said that it is up to Snowden if he wants to apply for Russian citizenship but he has expressed before that he wants to return home to the US.
