Snowden’s Options for Refuge Narrow

As Edward Snowden entered his second week of limbo in Moscow's airport on Sunday, his decision to go to Russia is looking riskier than it first appeared, and may have left him in a worse situation than if he had stayed in Hong Kong.

Even with his next move uncertain, the former National Security Agency contractor caused fresh uproar over the weekend. On Sunday, German weekly Der Spiegel, citing information from Mr. Snowden, reported that the U.S. had placed listening devices in a European Union office in Washington, infiltrated its computers and carried out cyberattacks against EU bodies. The report prompted strong criticism from several European governments.

Mr. Snowden had hoped for asylum in Ecuador, but that seems less likely now. President Rafael Correa on Sunday retreated further from his country's early support of Mr. Snowden, telling the Associated Press it was up to Russian authorities to decide whether Mr. Snowden could travel to the Ecuadorean embassy in Moscow to seek asylum.

Mr. Snowden's limbo is the product of a series of rapid decisions made during his final 24 hours in Hong Kong, when he was struggling over whether to remain there or seek asylum elsewhere.

According to people familiar with his case, Mr. Snowden at first wanted to stay in Hong Kong, and sought to build public support there by giving a local newspaper information about U.S. hacking activities in the city. His Hong Kong legal team, which included local opposition legislator Albert Ho, was preparing for a long fight.

At least part of his legal team believed Hong Kong represented the best option to protect their client's safety and interests, one of the people familiar with his case said. Mr. Snowden, though, was getting a different message from WikiLeaks. On June 12, Mr. Snowden through an intermediary asked the antisecrecy organization to help him seek asylum in Iceland, WikiLeaks said on June 19. In the days after his approach, WikiLeaks asked other governments about asylum possibilities on Mr. Snowden's behalf.

"He obviously chose to go to Moscow, though I don't know why. I wouldn't have," said Patricia Ho of Hong Kong law firm Daly & Associates, who isn't involved in the case. She said Mr. Snowden had had a range of options still open to him before he left Hong Kong, including filing for asylum or contesting the U.S.'s request in the city's robust judicial system.

But Mr. Snowden's escape plan stalled when he got stuck in the transit area of the Moscow airport.

He touched down in Moscow a week ago on his way to Ecuador "via Russia and other states," according to WikiLeaks. Some two days later, Russian President Vladimir Putin denied a U.S. request to expel Mr. Snowden and urged the fugitive to get on his way. He has since been stuck in Sheremetyevo Airport's transit zone without a valid U.S. passport or a Russian visa, facing an increasingly uncertain path.

The Obama administration sought to systematically cut off Mr. Snowden's asylum options once he left Hong Kong, said senior U.S. officials working on the strategy.

One focus, these officials said, has been to repeatedly stress to Moscow that hopes for better cooperation on issues ranging from counterterrorism to Syria could be jeopardized without cooperation on Mr. Snowden.

On Ecuador, senior U.S. officials, including Vice President Joe Biden, have pressed to Quito that its economic engagement with the U.S. could diminish if Mr. Snowden is granted asylum. The Latin American country has a dollar-based economy and is reliant on the U.S. for 40% of its exports. Oil accounts for about 80% of Ecuador's exports to the U.S., but the country also exports significant amounts of fish and seafood, bananas and flowers.

The Obama administration has used the outrage in Congress over Mr. Snowden to pressure Mr. Correa, said U.S. officials.

White House officials declined to discuss in detail Mr. Biden's phone conversation with Mr. Correa. But U.S. officials said this threat of congressional action against Quito continues to be used by the administration to try to gain Mr. Correa's cooperation. They said they still believed the Ecuadorean leader was worried about the economic costs to his country.

The U.S. point man on dealing with Russia on Mr. Snowden has been the State Department's No. 2 diplomat, Undersecretary William Burns, said senior U.S. officials. Mr. Burns is a former American ambassador to Moscow who has regularly worked with Russia on issues from Middle East peace initiatives to Islamic militancy in the Caucasus. Mr. Burns also coordinated extensively with Russia when he served as the U.S. point man on Iran's nuclear program.

Mr. Burns and Secretary of State John Kerry have coordinated a message to Moscow that Russia can't expect the same level of support on counterterrorism and law-enforcement issues without cooperation on Mr. Snowden, U.S. officials said. Mr. Kerry particularly noted in talks with Russian officials, including Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, that over the past two years, the U.S. has extradited seven people who were wanted for crimes to Moscow.

One factor driving Mr. Snowden from Hong Kong, according to the people familiar with his case, was the likelihood that he would be held in jail while his extradition case was fought. In jail, he would have lost his Internet access. "I don't think he'd mind being in prison, so long as he could have the Internet," one of the people said.

It isn't known whether Mr. Snowden has Internet access at the Moscow airport, but others in the transit zone have access to the Web and other communications.

Mr. Snowden's chances of avoiding surrender to the U.S. by Hong Kong authorities were slim, some lawyers in Hong Kong said. "If he'd stayed in Hong Kong, authorities would only have been able to stall for so long, and then they would've had to comply under their obligations," said Kevin Egan, a Hong Kong lawyer who has handled surrender cases but who wasn't involved in the Snowden case. Since 1998, the city has handed back people to the U.S. in 65 cases under its surrender agreement. In at least one other case—involving someone charged by the U.S. with smuggling—Hong Kong didn't send the person back.

Other Hong Kong lawyers said one of Mr. Snowden's best options, and one that remains open to him if he returned to Hong Kong, is to file an asylum claim either with the Hong Kong government or the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, something he could have done while in Hong Kong. Another avenue for Mr. Snowden would have been for China to block the surrender by exercising its right to intervene in issues involving national security and foreign relations, though it is believed that Beijing signed off on his departure, according to diplomats and Hong Kong legislators.

China's Foreign Ministry didn't respond to questions last week about what role Beijing had played in negotiations over Mr. Snowden. "The central government obviously respects the Hong Kong SAR (Special Administrative Region) government's handling of affairs in accordance with law," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a regular news briefing.

Mr. Snowden could return to Hong Kong, Ms. Ho of Daly & Associates said, attempting to apply for asylum after he arrived from the Hong Kong government or the UNHCR. The Hong Kong government has asked airlines to bar him from flying there, but he could get around that restriction because Russia would be "returning" him to Hong Kong, which would be different than "allowing" him to fly to Hong Kong like a normal passenger, she said.

Mr. Snowden's time in Hong Kong was cloaked in secrecy, beginning with his initial approach to his lawyers. On June 10, the day after he exposed his identity in the Guardian newspaper, a Hong Kong-based intermediary called a local lawyer known for his work on human-rights issues to seek assistance, according to a person familiar with the case. The lawyer, who didn't know the caller, was told to meet him on a street in Hong Kong and they would ride together in a taxi to meet Mr. Snowden, the person said.

Soon after, reporters found Mr. Snowden in the Mira Hong Kong Hotel in the densely packed Tsim Sha Tsui neighborhood and he fled from there with the lawyer, the person said. Mr. Snowden moved locations only under cover of darkness and wore a cap and sunglasses on the rare occasions he went out, the people familiar with his case said.

In the days before Mr. Snowden's exit from Hong Kong, Mr. Ho, the opposition legislator, unsuccessfully sought clarification from the city's government on Mr. Snowden's case, the people familiar with the case said. He was growing increasingly worried that stepped-up pressure by the U.S. would push Hong Kong's government to detain him, these people said.

Around June 21, the same time the U.S. unsealed charges against him, according to one of the people familiar with his case, Mr. Snowden received an encrypted message that claimed to represent a government authority who urged him to leave Hong Kong, and assured him he would be able to clear immigration if he tried to do so. Mr. Ho tried to contact Hong Kong's government to determine whether the message's assurances were genuine, but didn't receive an immediate reply.

Mr. Snowden woke on Saturday, June 22, to news that the U.S. had unsealed the charges accusing him of crimes under the U.S. Espionage Act and theft of government property. He began looking for flights out of Hong Kong, a person familiar with his case said.

Moscow wasn't his only pick, this person said: His goal was to get somewhere he believed would protect him from the U.S. government's reach. He knew he needed to avoid U.S. airlines but didn't have a final destination in mind, people familiar with his case said. Throughout the day, he vacillated between staying and going, and about where he would go if he left, the person said.

Around midnight on Saturday, Mr. Snowden told his legal team that he wanted to leave town, the person said, and he was urged to get a good night's sleep and to think about it some more.

The next day, June 23, Mr. Snowden made up his mind and headed for the airport in a private car, the person said. In part because they weren't using mobile phones to communicate, one of his lawyers had gone ahead to the airport not knowing if Mr. Snowden would appear. At the airport, the lawyer bought a plane ticket to Shanghai—the cheapest one he could find—to ensure that he could accompany Mr. Snowden past immigration checks. He arrived at the airport just in time to make his Aeroflot flight to Moscow. He had no luggage to check. He cleared immigration and security and quietly boarded the flight.