Russia rejected U.S. pleas and granted American fugitive Edward Snowden a year's asylum on Thursday, letting the former spy agency contractor slip out of a Moscow airport after more than five weeks in limbo while angering the United States and putting in doubt a planned summit between the two nations' presidents.
The United States wanted Russia to send Snowden home to face criminal charges, including espionage, for disclosing in June secret American internet and telephone surveillance programs. The White House signaled that President Barack Obama may boycott a September summit with President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.
Snowden, whose disclosures triggered an international furor over the reach of U.S. spy operations as part of its counterterrorism efforts, thanked Russia for his temporary asylum and declared that "the law is winning."
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