Edward Snowden 'Waiting To Leave Airport'

Edward Snowden has not yet received the document which is expected to allow him to leave a Moscow airport, according to his lawyer.

For now, he will remain in the transit zone where he has been holed up for the past month.

"As of today, this document has not yet been given (to him)," lawyer Anatoly Kucherena told Russian television after meeting with Snowden.

Mr Kucherena said the process was being drawn out as this was the "first such situation in Russia".

Despite the delay, it is expected that the former NSA contractor will eventually be given authorisation to get through passport control, Sky News' Moscow correspondent Katie Stallard said.

The whistleblower, who leaked details of US security agency programmes targeting online and phone communications, applied for temporary asylum in Russia last week.

It is thought that he wants to move to an address in Moscow city centre while his application is considered.

Mr Kucherena told the media that Snowden would be staying put for now

"What they were expecting [today] was to get some sort of temporary document that would say he was formally being considered for asylum, that he can cross the Russian border while that happens," said Sky News' Katie Stallard.

"For whatever reason - the lawyer is blaming bureaucracy - that hasn't happened today, so all he can tell him is he has to stay there.

"He says he hopes it will be resolved in the nearest future. But that is as specific as he can be."

Mr Snowden's lawyer said he gave him some jeans, T-shirts and a copy of Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment during their meeting.

He also said that Snowden had no immediate plans to leave the country and "intends to stay in Russia [and] study Russian culture".

President Vladimir Putin, mindful of Russia's strained relations with the US, has stated that Snowden can only be granted asylum if he stops leaking secrets.

Snowden submitted a handwritten asylum request

The asylum decision could even be delayed until after he meets President Obama at a summit in Moscow in early September.

The 30-year-old had been considering going to South America but seemed to be trapped in the airport's transit area after the US revoked his passport.

Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua all said they would grant him political asylum but none is reachable by direct commercial flight from Moscow.

Snowden leaked details of top-secret US surveillance programmes - giving details of the monitoring of phone calls and internet data from companies such as Google and Facebook - to The Guardian and Washington Post.

He now faces espionage charges in America.

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