(FILES): This still frame from video recorded on June 6, 2013 shows
intelligence technician Edward Snowden speaking during an interview with
The Guardian newspaper at an undisclosed location in Hong Kong.
Photo/FILE
By AFP
The whereabouts of Snowden -- who is wanted by the
United States after leaking details of vast US surveillance programmes
-- remained a mystery with his lawyer refusing to disclose the location
for security reasons.
The White House said it was "extremely
disappointed" by Moscow's decision to grant Snowden asylum, adding that
it would now review the need for a planned summit between President
Barack Obama and President Vladimir Putin in September.
Nicknamed "the invisible man" by journalists, the
former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor on Thursday walked out
of Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport unnoticed and took a taxi to a secret
location. He now has temporary asylum in Russia for a year.
On Friday, the pro-Kremlin Life News website
published a photograph showing Snowden smiling broadly as he walked
through the airport arrivals area with a rucksack on his back and
carrying another bag.
He was shown accompanied by his Russian lawyer
Anatoly Kucherena and a staff member of WikiLeaks anti-secrecy website,
Sarah Harrison, as well as an unidentified dark-haired woman.
Snowden and Harrison had stayed in the transit zone of the airport north of Moscow since flying in from Hong Kong on June 23.
Kucherena said Snowden would eventually emerge
into public view and give interviews but the fugitive first required an
"adaptation course" after so long in the transit zone.
He said he is being helped by friends and has settled in a secure place which will not be disclosed.
"The friends that he had in the United States, who
introduced him to people here" are helping Snowden, Kucherena said
Friday evening when he appeared in a talk show "Live" on state
television. "He really fears for his life," he added, explaining the
secrecy.
Kucherena, a pro-Kremlin public figure and lawyer,
met Snowden along with several human rights activists at the airport,
and later helped him with his asylum bid. He also brought him a copy of
"Crime and Punishment," the classic novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
"He really liked the book," Kucherena said Friday. "He was delighted."
WikiLeaks said in a statement Snowden is now in a "secure, confidential place".
The founder of Russia's most popular social
network VKontakte -- 28-year-old Pavel Durov -- offered Snowden a job as
a programmer but Kucherena said he was still deciding what he would do.
Snowden thanked Russia and slammed the
administration of US President Barack Obama for having "no respect" for
international or domestic law.
"But in the end the law is winning," he said in the WikiLeaks statement.
Russia's decision to award Snowden asylum status
came two days after US soldier Bradley Manning was convicted of
espionage for passing US secrets to WikiLeaks.
Already tense Russia-US relations risk straining
further over the issue and the White House warned it could prompt Obama
to cancel a planned visit to Moscow for talks with Putin ahead of the
Saint Petersburg G20 summit.
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