Anatoly Kucherena said in the Russian capital that Mr Snowden, a former computer technician for the CIA and the US National Security Agency, had applied for temporary asylum in Russia and would receive a document allowing formal entry into the country within seven days once his case was accepted for review.
Mr Snowden, 30, has been living in the transit zone of Sheremetyevo airport since flying in on June 23 from Hong Kong, where he released details of US surveillance programmes for monitoring US citizens' phone and internet activity.
The US wants to extradite him on espionage charges but Vladimir Putin, Russia's president, has refused to hand him over.
Speaking to journalists, Mr Kucherena said he expected Mr Snowden's asylum request to be successful. "There shouldn't be a problem because those grounds which he has indicated, why he has applied to us, are convincing enough. And America shouldn't regard our humanitarian act as an unfriendly one." The lawyer added that the American leaker did not plan to go anywhere else soon and "does not exclude the possibility of requesting Russian citizenship". » | Tom Parfitt, Moscow | Wednesday, July 17, 2013
