By Anthony Faiola,
LONDON — They made the most obvious of bedfellows: Edward Snowden and WikiLeaks.
When the former contractor who leaked top-secret details of U.S. and British surveillance operations landed in Moscow on Sunday, Snowden disembarked from Aeroflot Flight SU213 with Sarah Harrison, a member of the WikiLeaks legal team, by his side. His arrival in Russia, en transit to a third country in search of asylum from a U.S. extradition request, came after what appeared to be a Hollywoodesque plan to spirit him out of hiding in Hong Kong that was orchestrated with the aid of the whistleblower Web site.
On Sunday, WikiLeaks said in a statement that Snowden would petition Ecuador for asylum. The government in Quito — which has already granted WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange asylum at its embassy in London — confirmed that it had received an official request for asylum from Snowden.
“This was an obvious thing for us to do, to support him in any way we can,” said Kristinn Hrafnsson, an Icelandic journalist and WikiLeaks spokesman. “His revelations have been explosive and extremely important, and we’ve offered our full help and assistance.”
The behind-the-scenes machinations once again shined a spotlight on WikiLeaks, the crusading organization that has become a thorn in the side of Western governments through its occasionally damaging, almost always embarrassing revelations of official secrets.
The brand of assistance offered by WikiLeaks in legal cases is well documented and potent, with the group displaying an uncanny ability to tap assistance from countries hostile to the West and particular the United States. For more than a year, Assange, for instance, has defied the odds against the British and Swedish legal systems, holing up at the Embassy of Ecuador, a stone’s throw from Harrods in opulent Knightsbridge, as he fights extradition to face allegations of sexual assault in Stockholm.
The marriage is also a natural match, with both Snowden and WikiLeaks sharing an ideology of disclosure and a contempt for official secrecy. WikiLeaks has already been linked to Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, the source for a trove of classified material passed to WikiLeaks and whose case has drawn close parallels to Snowden’s.
Hrafnsson said he had personally established contact with Snowden last week while the American was still in Hong Kong. He remained vague about the operational details of their contact, saying only “I used means that any journalist would.”
Arrangements were then made, Hrafnsson said, for Harrison, a member of the WikiLeaks legal defense team who works under the former crusading Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon, to meet Snowden in Hong Kong and accompany him out of the autonomous region. Harrison, a British citizen and journalist as well as legal researcher, is not a lawyer. But she is considered a close confidante of Assange and a high-level member of the WikiLeaks operation. Harrison was still with Snowden in Moscow, Hrafnsson said.
WikiLeaks, Hrafnsson said, had been in the process for some days of trying to find a friendly government willing to grant Snowden asylum. He said had already made contact with the Icelandic government on Snowden’s behalf, but had been told by the government there that asylum seekers first needed to be present and within that nation’s jurisdiction before processing any claim.
In a statement on its Web site posted on Sunday, WikiLeaks said Snowden was heading to Ecuador. “Mr. Snowden requested that WikiLeaks use its legal expertise and experience to secure his safety,” the statement said. “Once Mr. Snowden arrives in Ecuador his request will be formally processed.”
On Sunday, Ecuador’s Foreign Minister Ricardo Patiño confirmed his government had received a formal request for asylum from Snowden but did not elaborate.
Garzon, legal director of WikiLeaks and lawyer for Julian Assange who once famously issued an international arrest warrant for former Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet, said the group’s legal aid for Snowden rose from a need to protect him.
“The WikiLeaks legal team and I are interested in preserving Mr Snowden’s rights and protecting him as a person,” Garzon said in a statement. “What is being done to Mr Snowden and to Mr Julian Assange — for making or facilitating disclosures in the public interest — is an assault against the people.”
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US revokes NSA leaker Edward Snowden's passport, as he reportedly seeks asylum in Ecuador
The anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks said Sunday it is helping Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who exposed secrets about the federal government's surveillance program, to seek asylum in Ecuador.
The announcement came as a source confirmed to Fox News Saturday that the United States revoked Snowden's passport.
"As is routine and consistent with US regulations, persons with felony arrest warrants are subject to having their passport revoked," State Dept. spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement. "Such a revocation does not affect citizenship status. Persons wanted on felony charges, such as Mr. Snowden, should not be allowed to proceed in any further international travel, other than is necessary to return him to the United States. Because of the Privacy Act, we cannot comment on Mr. Snowden's passport specifically."
In a statement released Sunday, WikiLeaks said Snowden left Hong Kong legally and is "bound for the Republic of Ecuador via a safe route for the purposes of asylum."
Ecuador's foreign minister sent out a message on Twitter that appears to confirm the WikiLeaks statement, saying the government of Ecuador has received an asylum request from Snowden.
WikiLeaks also said Snowden is traveling with diplomats and legal advisers from the group.
"Mr. Snowden requested that WikiLeaks use its legal expertise and experience to secure his safety," WikiLeaks said in a statement. "Once Mr. Snowden arrives in Ecuador his request will be formally processed."
Snowden is believed to have taken a flight Sunday to Moscow from Hong Kong, where he had been in hiding since revealing information on classified spy programs.
A diplomatic vehicle displaying an Ecuadorean flag could be seen waiting outside the Moscow airport.
WikiLeaks' founder, Julian Assange, who has spent a year inside the Ecuadorean Embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden to face questioning about sex crime allegations, told the Sydney Morning Herald that his organization is in a position to help because it has expertise in international asylum and extradition law.
The White House said President Barack Obama has been briefed on Sunday's developments by his national security advisers.
Snowden's departure came a day after the United States made a formal request for his extradition and warned Hong Kong against delaying the process of returning him to face trial in the U.S.
The Department of Justice said only that it would "continue to discuss this matter with Hong Kong and pursue relevant law enforcement cooperation with other countries where Mr. Snowden may be attempting to travel."
The Hong Kong government said in a statement that Snowden left "on his own accord for a third country through a lawful and normal channel."
It acknowledged the U.S. extradition request, but said U.S. documentation did not "fully comply with the legal requirements under Hong Kong law." It said additional information was requested from Washington, but since the Hong Kong government "has yet to have sufficient information to process the request for provisional warrant of arrest, there is no legal basis to restrict Mr. Snowden from leaving Hong Kong."
The statement said Hong Kong had informed the U.S. of Snowden's departure.
Snowden's departure came as the South China Morning Post released new allegations from Snowden that U.S. hacking targets in China included the nation's cellphone companies and two universities hosting extensive Internet traffic hubs.
He told the newspaper that "the NSA does all kinds of things like hack Chinese cellphone companies to steal all of your SMS data." It added that Snowden said he had documents to support the hacking allegations, but the report did not identify the documents. It said he spoke to the newspaper in a June 12 interview.
Snowden said Tsinghua University in Beijing and Chinese University in Hong Kong, home of some of the country's major Internet traffic hubs, were targets of extensive hacking by U.S. spies this year. He said the NSA was focusing on so-called "network backbones" in China, through which enormous amounts of Internet data passes.
The Chinese government has not commented on the extradition request and Snowden's departure, but its state-run media have used Snowden's allegations to poke back at Washington after the U.S. had spent the past several months pressuring China on its international spying operations.
A commentary published Sunday by the official Xinhua News Agency said Snowden's disclosures of U.S. spying activities in China have "put Washington in a really awkward situation."
"Washington should come clean about its record first. It owes ... an explanation to China and other countries it has allegedly spied on," it said. "It has to share with the world the range, extent and intent of its clandestine hacking programs."
Fox News' James Rosen, Kelly Chernenkoff and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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