US President Donald Trump has indicated that he may pardon Edward Snowden, a former US National Security Agency (NSA) contractor, who leaked a huge trove of secret information back in 2013, Reuters reports.
Snowden fled the US following the leaks, made to various media outlets, and has been living in Russia for the past few years, where he was given asylum.
US authorities continue to seek his extradition to face criminal charges for revealing domestic and international surveillance operations conducted by the NSA.
Shortly after the leaks, Trump called Snowden “a spy who should be executed" - now he has changed his tune, saying that "there are a lot of people that think that he is not being treated fairly" by U.S. law enforcement and that “I’m going to start looking at it."
Snowden’s Russian lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, told the RIA news agency that a pardon, in his opinion, was not sufficient - rather, the US should drop all charges against Snowden, since "he was acting not only in the interest of the American citizens, but in the interest of all the humankind.”