A lawyer representing the fugitive U.S. whistle-blower, Edward Snowden, in Moscow insisted on Wednesday that the Russian government has not been successful in its attempt to recruit the former U.S. intelligence worker.
“As soon as Snowden arrived in Russia, people from the Federal Security Service (FSB) tried to recruit him.
“But he refused the deal,’’ Lawyer Anatoly Kucherena said in comments carried by state news agencies TASS and RIA Novosti.
Snowden’s refusal to collaborate with Russian state intelligence is why it took so long for his asylum request to be processed, Kucherena said.
He spent more than a month in the terminal of a Moscow airport in 2013 upon his arrival as a fugitive until the Russian authorities granted his asylum request.
He is believed to have been living in Russia ever since.
The U.S. Department of Justice, this week, filed a civil suit against Snowden to obtain all earnings he might gain from a new book he is publishing.
The suit emphasised it is not seeking to stop the publication or distribution of the memoir, titled “Permanent Record,” which is, in part, based on his work for the U.S. government and his leaks about its surveillance programmes.
The U.S. government notes that Snowden signed non-disclosure agreements with both the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security Agency (NSA).
The suit alleges that Snowden did not file for pre-publication review as those agreements require.
