NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden’s well-established desire to end his asylum in Russia and return home to the United States if promised access to “fair and impartial” legal proceedings is in the news again on Tuesday following new comments by his Russian lawyer that sparked a flurry of headlines.
“He thinks that he has a chance to go back, and we are doing everything possible to make that happen,” said the attorney, Anatoly Kucherena, as quoted by the Interfax news agency.
“With a group of lawyers from other countries, we are working on the question of his return to America,” Kucherena added. “Snowden is ready to return to the States, but on the condition that he is given a guarantee of a legal and impartial trial.”
Attorney General Eric Holder stated in a letter to Snowden’s legal team in 2013 that the whistleblower would not face the death penalty if he returned home, but Kucherena said Tuesday those promises were not enough.
“[T]hey guarantee that Snowden will not be executed, not that he will receive a fair trial. And it is guaranteed by attorney [general] who cannot even influence court decisions according to law,” he said during the press conference.
“A trial under the Espionage Act would not be considered fair,” Jesselyn Radack, director of the national security and human rights program at the Government Accountability Project and one of Snowden’s legal advisors, told Politico.
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