Next stop, Venezuela? Asylum offers pour in for Snowden

While NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden remains camped out in Russia, the question that still hasn’t been answered is ‘where will he go next?’ After fleeing the US for Hong Kong and then the transit area of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport, Snowden has filed requests with more than twenty countries, but so far only Bolivia, Venezuela and Nicaragua have confirmed they’d be willing to offer him asylum.

According to The Guardian, Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, and Nicaragua’s president, Daniel Ortega, have offered Snowden asylum, and were joined on Saturday by Bolivia’s president Evo Morales, whose plane was prevented from using French and Portuguese airspace last week after authorities believed the former NSA contractor may have been on board. But while Snowden didn’t escape the airport building via presidential jet, the US has taken steps to prevent another international getaway, by filing an extradition request with Venezuelan authorities asking them to arrest him should he arrive in the country.

The request asks that Venezuelan officials honour an extradition treaty by holding Snowden in custody if he seeks to “travel to or transit through” the country, and explains he is wanted for the theft of government property, as well as for the unauthorised disclosure of classified communication intelligence and of national defense information to international media organisations. All three counts carry a maximum sentence of ten years in prison. President Maduro told local media that he has rejected the request.

According to Wikileaks, which has been assisting Snowden, the former contractor has requested asylum in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia, as well as a number of other countries ranging from Russia to Iceland to Spain. So far, only the three South American countries have agreed to the requests, although Ecuador, which has previously offered asylum to Wikileak’s Julian Assange, is also reportedly considering the application.