27.06 Ecuador Official Says No Transit Documents Issued for Snowden
MOSCOW, June 27 (RIA Novosti) - Ecuador authorities did not issue any travel document for fugitive former CIA employee Edward Snowden, wanted by the United States for leaking state secrets, Ecuadors acting foreign minister said on Wednesday.
This is untrue. No Ecuadorean consulate has ever issued a passport or other document [to Snowden], said Galo Galarza, who is filling for the countrys foreign minister Ricardo Patino, who currently is on tour of Asia.
Galarzas statement was posted on the website of private TV station, Teleamazonas.
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] Assanges case to decide on whether to grant an asylum for Snowden.
The foreign minister of Ecuador earlier said 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.
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 Moscows 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.
Meanwhile, 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.
The councils chairman, Mikhail Fedotov, replied that the request would be considered and put to a vote.
"If an issue like that gains the support of the majority of the councils members, then it can be considered a request on behalf of the whole council. Once the vote secures 31 votes [in favor], a document is considered to be accepted, he said.
