US urges Snowden's return from Russia

The White House said Tuesday US intelligence whistleblower Edward Snowden should be expelled and returned to the United States to face espionage charges at home.

White House Spokesman Jay Carney said there are "regular communications between the US government and the Russian government on a host of matters," including the Snowden case.

Snowden filed an official request for temporary asylum in Russia on Tuesday after spending three weeks in limbo in the transit zone of Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport.

"Our interest has always been in seeing him expelled from Russia and returned to the United States," said Carney, noting that Snowden "is not a human rights activist. He is not a dissident."

Snowden is "accused of leaking classified information. He's been charged with three felony counts related to the leaking of classified information," he said.

Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor, disclosed massive secret phone and Internet surveillance programs of the US National Security Agency in early June.

Carney didn't give much hint as to how this case would impact U. S.-Russia relations, saying President Barack Obama "intends to travel to Russia in September for the G20 summit. And I don't have any further announcements with regard to that travel."

Snowden officially seeks temporary asylum in Russia

US intelligence whistleblower Edward Snowden has filed an official request for temporary asylum in Russia, lawyer Anatoly Kucherena said Tuesday.

"Because Snowden cannot leave the transit area of the Sheremetyevo (Airport), he completed all necessary forms, wrote a request and gave it to a Russian Federal Migration Service employee invited there for that purpose," the Interfax news agency quoted Kucherena as saying. Full story