Snowden leaves Hong Kong 'on his own accord', arrives in Moscow with WikiLeaks help
Cyberspying whistle-blower leaves Hong Kong on flight to Russia just hours after the United States asked city authorities to detain him
Whistle-blower Edward Snowden arrived in Moscow yesterday, to seek asylum in Ecuador, after abruptly leaving Hong Kong in a dramatic blow to US efforts to put him on trial for espionage.
Snowden left on a flight for the Russian capital just hours after the United States had asked Hong Kong authorities to detain the 30-year-old and shortly after the release of court documents in the US detailing some of the charges he would face there.
Two weeks after breaking cover in Hong Kong, the former CIA technician is believed to have boarded Aeroflot flight SU213 shortly after 11am, landing at Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport 10 hours later. It was reported there that he would catch a connecting flight to a third country.
He is bound for the Republic of Ecuador via a safe route for the purposes of asylum
Russian news agency Interfax said Snowden did not leave the airport with the other passengers. It reported that he would spend the night in the airport's transit zone because he did not have a visa to enter Russia and had rented a room in a capsule hotel.
There was no immediate official confirmation of where he would head next, but Russian media reports citing sources in Aeroflot said he would fly to Cuba today and then board a flight to Caracas, the Venezuelan capital.
