Russian official confirms asylum request from NSA leaker

A Russian consular official says American whistle-blower Edward Snowden has applied for political asylum in the country.

Kim Shevchenko, the duty officer at the Russian Foreign Ministry’s consular office, told reporters on Monday that Snowden’s representative, Sarah Harrison, gave his request at the consular office at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport on Sunday.

On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Snowden may stay in Russia under “one condition: he should stop his work aimed at inflicting damage on our American partners no matter how strange this may sound coming from my lips.”

Snowden has been holed up at the airport since June 23 when he travelled from Hong Kong to avoid US extradition.

Washington has called on Ecuador, Cuba, Venezuela, and Russia not to provide political asylum to Snowden.

The US has reportedly revoked Snowden’s passport, with State Department spokesperson, Jen Psaki, saying the fugitive “should not be allowed to proceed in any further international travel, other than is necessary to return him to the US.”

Snowden leaked two top secret US government spying programs under which the NSA and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) are eavesdropping on millions of American and European phone records and the Internet data from major Internet companies such as Facebook, Yahoo, Google, Apple, and Microsoft.

Several US government officials including President Obama and FBI director Robert Mueller have defended the secret spying programs claiming that they are essential to the fight against terrorism.