Snowden’s father gets visa to visit son in Russia

PanARMENIAN.Net - In an exclusive interview on ABC’s “This Week,” Lon Snowden – father of NSA leaker Edward Snowden – said he has received a visa to travel to Russia to visit his son, while rejecting the notion of a plea deal for his son to return to the United States.

Lon Snowden and his lawyer, Bruce Fein, said they plan to make the trip to visit Snowden in Russia “very soon.”

“We have visas, we have a date, which we won’t disclose right now because of the frenzy,” Fein said on “This Week.” “We intend to visit with Edward and suggest criminal defense attorneys who have experience in criminal espionage act prosecutions.”

Fein added that Edward Snowden’s Russian attorney said “he’s safe” and “obviously is exhausted. But he’s now needing a period of time where he can recoup his energy level and reflect on what he wishes to do going forward.”

Lon Snowden said that he would not be open to a plea deal with U.S. authorities for his son to return to the U.S., saying Edward Snowden should instead fight espionage charges in court, according to ABC News.

“I can tell you that I’m not open to it and that’s what I’ll share with my son in terms of a plea deal,” Lon Snowden said. “At this point, what I would like is for this to be vetted in open court for the American people to have all the facts. What I have seen is much political theater.”

“Where my son chooses to live the rest of his life is going to be his decision,” Snowden added, “but I would like, at some point in time, for him to be able to come back to the U.S.”

Russia granted temporary asylum to Edward Snowden, who had been hiding out in Moscow airport since late June, despite demands to return the 30-year-old former NSA contractor to the United States to face espionage charges, after he grabbed headlines by revealing top-secret information about U.S. surveillance operations to The Guardian and The Washington Post.

The father said he has concerns over his son’s ability to receive a fair trial in the U.S., saying government officials have prematurely labeled his son a criminal.

“As a father, I want my son to come home if I believe that the justice system that we should be afforded as Americans is going to be applied correctly,” Lon Snowden said. “At this point, when you consider many of the statements made by our leaders, leaders in Congress, they are absolutely irresponsible and inconsistent with our system of justice. They have poisoned the well, so to speak, in terms of a potential jury pool.”