Off to Moscow | 255

Off to Moscow | 255 to Terminal E. It is a nine-minute walk through the transit passage- way. Snowden, though, had one good reason for not going to Ecua- dor, even if Russia had permitted it. He believed that he would be vulnerable to rendition by the U.S. government in Ecuador. “If they [the U.S. government] really wanted to capture me, they would’ve allowed me to travel to Latin America, because the CIA can oper- ate with impunity down there,” he explained in the previously cited interview with Katrina vanden Heuvel, the editor of The Nation, in 2014. He had already discussed the likelihood of his being captured in Ecuador with Assange before his departure for Moscow. He later told Alan Rusbridger, the editor of The Guardian, that he considered himself at risk in Latin America. So why would Snowden, who told Greenwald that his “first priority” was his own “physical safety,” leave the comparative safety of Russia to put himself in jeopardy in Ecuador? He had not obtained a visa to Ecuador at its consulate in Hong Kong, as Kucherena confirmed. The Ecuador destination was, as we have seen, a cover story put out by Assange and his associates, and it © worked with the press. ® Over a hundred reporters and photographers scrambled aboard Aeroflot Flight SU150 to Cuba the next morning in response to this anonymous tip on a website, but Snowden was not aboard that flight and was not seen in Terminal E. By the time the plane landed in Cuba, Aeroflot denied that anyone named Snowden had ever been booked on any of its flights to Cuba, a denial it continued to repeat to every reporter who queried the airline for the next six weeks. The first news that Snowden was still in Russia came on July 1, 2013. A statement posted on the WikiLeaks website—and signed “Edward Snowden”—after thanking “friends new and old” for his “continued liberty,” accused President Obama of pressuring “leaders of nations from which I have requested protection to deny my asy- lum petitions.” It added, “This kind of deception from a world leader is not justice, and neither is the extralegal penalty of exile. These are the old, bad tools of political aggression.” In fact, Snowden had not suffered a “penalty of exile,” because his passport was still valid for returning to the United States, but that was not an option for him as the statement made clear. | | Epst_9780451494566_2p_all_r1.indd 255 ® 9/30/16 8:13AM | | HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_019743