SNOWDEN LEFT MOSCOW FROM SHEREMETYEVO AIRPORT

       Moscow, 16 Sha’ban 1434/25 June 2013 (MINA) – Ex-CIA officer who leaked information on US government’s surveillance program has definitely left Moscow from Sheremetyevo airport on June 24, informed anonymous source at the airport told Voice of Russia on Tuesday.

       Snowden was expected to depart Moscow for Havana at 2:05 p.m. on Monday but he was not on board, according to Turkish Weekly report monitored by Mi’raj News Agency (MINA).

       He took an Aeroflot flight from Hong Kong to Moscow’s Sheremetyevo on Sunday. It became known later on that he had asked Ecuador for political asylum.

       Snowden  is a former technical contractor and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employee who worked for Booz Allen Hamilton, a contractor for the National Security Agency (NSA), before leaking details of top-secret American and British government mass surveillance programs to the press.

       Journalists camped out at the airport have not spotted him inside, or leaving, the transit area, and say a heavy security presence has been relaxed for the past 24 hours. He has not registered at a hotel in the transit zone, hotel sources say, Reuters reported.

       A receptionist at the Capsule Hotel “Air Express”, a complex of 47 basic rooms decorated predominantly with grey carpets and grey walls, said Snowden had turned up on Sunday, looked at the price list but then left.

       Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov denied suggestions Moscow had helped Snowden in any way, including by allowing him to fly into Sheremetyevo.

       “He chose his itinerary on his own. We learnt about it … from the media. He has not crossed the Russian border,” he said. “We consider the attempts to accuse the Russian side of violating U.S. laws, and practically of involvement in a plot, to be absolutely groundless and unacceptable.”(T/P03/E1)

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)