Snowden rejects accusations of being a Russian spy, says he 'acted alone'

Edward Snowden has rejected suggestions he was a Russian spy, saying in remarks published on Tuesday that he acted alone in exposing US surveillance programmes.

“This ‘Russian spy’ push is absurd,” the US fugitive told The New Yorker.

In an interview the magazine said was carried out by “encrypted means” from Moscow, the 30-year-old said he “clearly and unambiguously acted alone, with no assistance from anyone, much less a government.”

On Sunday two Republican lawmakers suggested the fugitive - who is in hiding in Russia - may have acted in concert with a foreign power, possibly Moscow.

House Intelligence Committee chairman Mike Rogers, for one, told NBC’s Meet the Press talk show that he didn’t think “it was a gee-whiz luck event that (Snowden) ended up in Moscow under the handling of the FSB” Russian state security agency.

Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, told ABC’s This Week that he didn’t believe “Mr Snowden was capable of doing everything himself.”