Brazil denies NSA fugitive Edward Snowden has applied for asylum
Foreign Minister Luiz Alberto Figueiredo says application would be considered; Oliver Stone to direct film about fugitive US intelligence contractor
Brazil’s foreign minister denied on Monday that fugitive US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden had applied to the Brazilian government for asylum.
Snowden, who is currently in Russia on temporary asylum that expires in August, told Brazil’s Globo TV in an interview aired on Sunday that he “would love to live in Brazil” and had formally applied for asylum there.
But Foreign Minister Luiz Alberto Figueiredo said that was not the case.
“If the request arrives, it will be considered. It hasn’t arrived,” he told O Globo.
Snowden sent shock waves around the world last year when he revealed the extent of Washington’s electronic eavesdropping, including the mass collection of phone data and spying on foreign leaders’ communications.
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff was among those targeted, according to documents he leaked last year.
She cancelled a state visit to Washington after the revelations.
Meanwhile, Oliver Stone is to make a film about Snowden, based on a book by a British journalist.
Luke Harding, the author of The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World’s Most Wanted Man, said on Twitter that the US filmmaker had bought the film rights to the book.
Harding, who writes for The Guardian, said Stone would write and direct the film with his long-term producing partner Moritz Borman.
“I’m thrilled and delighted,” the journalist said.
Stone, an Oscar-winning director whose films include Wall Street, JFK, and Nixon, said he was looking forward to making the film.
“This is one of the greatest stories of our time. A real challenge,” he said.
The Guardian said Stone had begun writing the screenplay, while Borman was “fast-tracking it as a major European co-production” to start filming before the end of the year.
Harding and other Guardian journalists are due to act as production and story consultants.
“The story of Edward Snowden is truly extraordinary, and the unprecedented revelations he brought to light have forever transformed our understanding of – and relationship with – government and technology,” said Alan Rusbridger, The Guardian’s editor-in-chief.
“We’re delighted to be working with Oliver Stone and Moritz Borman on the film.”
The Stone film is not the only one being made about Snowden, based on a Guardian writer’s book.
Sony Pictures Entertainment said last month it has acquired the rights to the new book by Glenn Greenwald, who led the Pulitzer Prize-winning team at the paper that covered the story.
James Bond franchise producers Michael Wilson and Barbara Broccoli will make the movie version of No Place to Hide, described as “a political film that will resonate with today’s moviegoers.”
