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Comment by mikegioia | Hacker News Reader

If France were to grant Snowden political asylum, would that mean Russia is obligated via treaty to send him there? Would France have to send an escort to bring him back? Or is Snowden's fate entirely up to Putin and the Russian government at this point?

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As a french, France (aka our executive branch) is not going to grant him asylum. If he wants it, he will have to make a formal request and have our judicial branch decide on it. Because the USA are on our "fair countries" list, the decision must be made in at most 15 days and will not be so easy to get.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_asylum#France

I do believe our judicial branch to be fair, although there would be tons of pressions on them. But fair doesn't mean granting him asylum, it means judging is he indeed would be persecuted unfairly.

Snowden is in Russia, in the airport, not having gone through Russian customs and without necessary documentation to do so.

My understanding is that he is technically on international ground, and legally not in Russia. He is free to hop onto any plane that lets him do so.

According to Putin's latest pronouncement, he's welcome to stay in Russia only if he stops the leaks against the USA, or he's welcome to go to any country that will have him.

I fear not; you need a passport to buy an international plane ticket.

Any country that grants him asylum would have to provide him with travel documents. It would be easy for a corrupt government to stop people from gaining asylum otherwise.

ok, but he needs some country's ok first.

It sounds like it is all up to Putin at this point. I wonder if there is something he would want from the US in exchange.

I think it's up to Russia now, and I don't even know how the whole no-passport thing will play out now, but I assume that if a country is willing to give him asylum, he doesn't need a passport for that (as long as the country he's leaving allows him to do so).

Would they not provide him a (provisional) passport as part of his asylum deal?

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