A lawyer for NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden says his client has been granted permission to stay in Russia for three more years.
The former NSA contractor, who has been in Russia for a year, received a residence permit allowing him to stay in Russia until July 2017, lawyer Analtoly Kucherena told Russian news outlets on Thursday, according to Fox News.
The permit, however, does not grant Snowden political asylum, which would have allowed him to stay in Russia permanently. Political asylum must be sought through a different procedure, Kucherena said. The lawyer did not say if Snowden is seeking political asylum, Fox News reported.
But the permit does enable Snowden to travel outside Russia for up to three months at a time.
"Of course, he misses his relatives, and coming to terms with his future was difficult for him," the lawyer said according to The Guardian. "He will decide for himself about meeting with them."
Snowden fled the U.S. to Hong Kong last summer when he leaked classified NSA documents to The Guardian and The Washington Post exposing the government's Internet and phone spying programs. An international debate was launched about where the government's right to spy on people ends and the individual's right to privacy begins.
The whistleblower flew from Hong Kong to Russia where he was granted one year asylum.
Since then the U.S. has repeatedly called for Snowden to return home where he could be tried for espionage.
Snowden, whose current whereabouts are confidential, said he wishes to come home.
"I don't think there's ever been any question that I'd like to go home," Snowden told NBC's Brian Williams in May. "From day one, I've said, 'I'm doing this to serve my country.' Now, whether amnesty or clemency ever becomes a possibility is not for me to say. That's a debate for the public and the government to decide.
"But if I could go anywhere in the world, that place would be home."
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