Edward Snowden: Offered Asylum by Venezuela

Edward Snowden VenezuelaWSJ reports: Venezuela is offering “humanitarian asylum” to U.S. National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, President Nicolás Maduro said Friday, suggesting his country could offer the leaker a way out of his apparent limbo in a Moscow airport but provided no details as to how it could happen.

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega also said his country would consider such a request by Mr. Snowden.

On Saturday, Bolivian President Evo Morales said Mr. Snowden is welcome in his country, according to the Associated Press. Mr. Morales didn’t say if he has received a formal petition for asylum from Mr. Snowden.

It wasn’t clear how Mr. Snowden could make it to those countries, however. There are no direct commercial flights from Moscow to Caracas. And a recent analysis of his possible routes to Ecuador, a country that last week extended an asylum offer to him providing he could get to Ecuadorean territory, showed that all of his connecting flight routes to that country ran through countries that have extradition treaties with the U.S. Nonetheless, Mr. Snowden could board a plane from Moscow to Havana, and then go on to Caracas. Although Cuba has an extradition treaty with the U.S., it has largely been a dead letter. Read entire article at WSJ.