Oliver Stone buys rights to thriller by Edward Snowden's Russian lawyer

Hollywood director Oliver Stone has acquired movie rights to a political thriller penned by US whistle-blower Edward Snowden's Russian lawyer, the pro-Kremlin attorney said yesterday.

It is the latest in a series of deals which illustrate that the former National Security Agency contractor's story has lost none of its potency. "The rights to my book have been handed over to Oliver Stone and producer Moritz Borman," Anatoly Kucherena told Agence France-Presse.

"He [Stone] met with me, he did not meet with Snowden. The book will be published later."

Kucherena is completing a potboiler dubbed the Time of the Octopus, which tells the story of a US whistle-blower, loosely based on Snowden's experiences.

One of Russia's most high-profile lawyers, Kucherena was among a select group of public figures granted a meeting with the US fugitive during his stay of over a month at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport last year.

The lawyer helped Snowden receive temporary asylum in Russia and has since acted as his spokesman and link to the outside world.

Filmmaker Stone, a trenchant critic of the American political establishment, has also purchased the movie rights to another book about Snowden written by Luke Harding of Britain's The Guardian.