Ecuador reviewing Snowden's asylum request

HANOI - The Ecuadorian government has told Russia that it is reviewing the asylum request from Edward Snowden, the former US intelligence contractor, Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino Aroca said at a press conference held in Vietnamese capital Hanoi on Monday.

The Ecuadorian foreign minister, who is paying a two-day visit to Vietnam, confirmed here earlier Monday morning that the Ecuadorian government had received the request for asylum from Snowden and was to analyze that "with a lot of responsibility".

Patino released on Sunday the information that Ecuadorian government had received Snowden's asylum request on his Twitter account, but did not give further details.

An Aeroflot flight reportedly carrying Snowden, who is sought by the United States for revealing classified surveillance programs, landed at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport at 17:05 local time (1305 GMT) on Sunday, after leaving Hong Kong. Local media in Moscow said Snowden intended to fly to Cuba and then on to Caracas, Venezuela, or Ecuador.

Snowden fled to Hong Kong on May 20 after exposing two highly classified National Security Agency surveillance programs, one collecting US phone records and the other mining Internet data.