Just out:
#BREAKING [4]: Edward Snowden agrees to asylum in Venezuela: top lawmaker
— Agence France-Presse (@AFP) July 9, 2013 [5]
BREAKING: Lawmaker close to Kremlin tweets that Edward Snowden has accepted Venezuela's asylum offer.
— The Associated Press (@AP) July 9, 2013 [6]
Not a bad deal: beautiful sun, beautiful sand, beautiful women. Just bring lots of toilet paper.
* * *
Update: maybe not just yet:
Tweet in which Russian lawmaker said Snowden accepted Venezuela's offer of asylum no longer visible on Twitter
— Reuters India (@ReutersIndia) July 9, 2013 [7]
And from Bloomberg:
- KREMLIN SAYS HAS NO INFO ON SNOWDEN ACCEPTING VENEZUELAN ASYLU
It appears the confusion is due to a tweet by Russian politicians and head of the international affairs committee Alexey Pushkov [8], in which he said Snowden accepted asylum, only to have said tweet deleted moments later. Here is the tweet as it first appeared.
[9]
More from Sky News [10]:
US intelligence whistleblower Edward Snowden has accepted an offer of political asylum from Venezuela, a Russian politician says.
In a tweet, the head of the Russian parliament's foreign affairs committee, Alexei Pushkov wrote: "Snowden has given his agreement to (Venezuelan President Nicolas) Maduro's offer of political asylum."
However the tweet was quickly removed from his account.
Snowden leaked details of a US intelligence programme used to monitor Internet activity and is on the run after espionage
charges were filed against him.
He is believed to have been in a transit zone in Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport since June 23 after he reportedly failed to board a flight to Cuba.