Bloomberg’s Elizabeth Dwoskin says it’s probably a good idea for Eric Snowden to ixnay on the Ussiaray if he doesn’t want a one-way ticket back to Dulles:
The big question now is whether the Russians will hand over Snowden. Washington has become closer with Moscow ever since a Chechen national bombed the Boston marathon. After the attacks, Russian President Vladmir Putin’s spokesman told reporters that law-enforcement cooperation between the two countries had reached new levels. On the plus side for Snowden, Russia has no extradition treaty with the U.S. and a history of harboring American fugitives during the Cold War, such as spy suspect and former CIA agent Edward Lee Howard. Russian authorities also told the Washington Post that as long as Snowden is in a secure transit zone in the airport, he’s not technically on Russian soil—and so they don’t have the authority to detain him. But Russia hasn’t harbored U.S fugitives in decades: Since 2002, in fact, Russia has extradited three fugitives to the U.S., according to the U.S. Marshall’s Service (via an extraditions map put together by Slate).
I added the emphasis because it was one of those little technical details that allowed Hong Kong to let Snowden free to travel. China pushed hard at Obama, likely to no ill effect. So will Russia follow suit and look just as tough, or will they try and keep our cooperation at those “new levels?”
Your guess is as good as mine.
UPDATE: I wrote this before seeing that Snowden is apparently in Havana already. Or somewhere, but certainly no longer in Moscow. Unless he is.
Tweaking Obama is a game the whole world can play!
Join the conversation as a VIP Member