Is Venezuela Offered Snowden Asylum
Country Would Provide 'Humanitarian Asylum' to NSA Leaker
Venezuela
is offering "humanitarian asylum" to U.S. National Security Agency
leaker Edward Snowden, President Nicolás Maduro said Friday, suggesting
his country could offer the leaker a way out of his apparent limbo in a
Moscow airport but provided no details as to how it could happen.
Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega also said his country would consider such a request by Mr. Snowden.
It wasn't clear how Mr. Snowden could make it to either country, however. There are no direct commercial flights from Moscow to Caracas. And a recent analysis of his possible routes to Ecuador, a country that last week extended an asylum offer to him providing he could get to Ecuadorean territory, showed that all of his connecting flight routes to that country ran through countries that have extradition treaties with the U.S. Nonetheless, Mr. Snowden could board a plane from Moscow to Havana, and then go on to Caracas. Although Cuba has an extradition treaty with the U.S., it has largely been a dead letter.
Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega also said his country would consider such a request by Mr. Snowden.
It wasn't clear how Mr. Snowden could make it to either country, however. There are no direct commercial flights from Moscow to Caracas. And a recent analysis of his possible routes to Ecuador, a country that last week extended an asylum offer to him providing he could get to Ecuadorean territory, showed that all of his connecting flight routes to that country ran through countries that have extradition treaties with the U.S. Nonetheless, Mr. Snowden could board a plane from Moscow to Havana, and then go on to Caracas. Although Cuba has an extradition treaty with the U.S., it has largely been a dead letter.
