U.S. intelligence leaker Edward Snowden has filed an official petition to extend his asylum in Russia for another year, a news report said Tuesday.
An unidentified official at the Federal Migration Service told Izvestia that Snowden had submitted the petition to the Moscow region branch of the agency by the June 30 deadline, a month before his current one-year asylum status expires.
If the request is granted, Snowden's asylum will be extended for another year, the official was quoted as saying.
Snowden said in an interview with NBC in late May that given the choice, he would have preferred to return to the U.S., but that he would ask Russia to extend his stay "if the asylum looks like it's going to run out."
He also told Brazilian television channel Globo in early June that he had formally applied "to several countries, including Brazil" with asylum requests. But the Brazilian Foreign Ministry denied having received an official petition, Gazeta.ru reported at the time.
Snowden, a former National Security Agency employee, has been living in Russia since he fled the U.S. last year after leaking thousands of highly classified documents.
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