The first trailer showing Benedict Cumberbatch playing Julian Assange has leaked.

The two-minute snippet shows the British actor speaking with an Aussie accent and appearing with lank, grey hair.

Disney’s DreamWorks studio is behind The Fifth Estate, which sees Cumberbatch take on the role of the infamous Australian behind whistleblower website WikiLeaks.

Movie website IMDB has labelled the teaser a “Hot Trailer” while the Hollywood Reporter says the trailer “has the feel of a conspiracy thriller”.

Assange refused to meet with the actor, even though Cumberbatch reached out to the whistleblower before taking on the role.

“He felt that a meeting would condone a film he felt was too poisonous an account,” Cumberbatch recently told UK’s Time Out magazine.

“He got hold of an old script and all sorts of issues blew up when we were filming.

“He tried to attack it and in his position I’d do the same, probably. We had a discussion, though, which was good. If Julian is feeling that way, politically he’s right not to let that (a meeting) happen, because it would be like a blessing.”

MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday accused the United States of trapping US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden in Moscow, saying he would leave Russia as soon as possible.

“As soon as there’s the chance to move somewhere he will certainly do this,” Putin said in his first public remarks since Snowden summoned several rights activists and lawyers for a dramatic meeting Friday at state-controlled Sheremetyevo airport.

Putin accused Washington of preventing Snowden from leaving Russia after the fugitive ex-intelligence analyst arrived from Hong Kong on June 23.

“He arrived on our territory uninvited, he did not fly to us, he was flying in transit to other countries,” Putin said in televised remarks.

“But as soon as he was in the air, it became known, and our American partners essentially blocked off his further flight.”

Snowden was checked in for a flight from Moscow to Havana, Cuba on June 24 but never boarded the plane.

“They themselves scared off all the other countries, no one wants to take him, and therefore they essentially themselves trapped him on our territory,” Putin said.

“A nice gift to us for Christmas,” the strongman president was quoted as saying by Russian reporters travelling with him on a visit to the island of Gogland in the Gulf of Finland.

Asked what will happen to Snowden, Putin said: “How would I know? That’s his life, his fate.”

But he also noted a change in position by Snowden, who said Friday he wanted to apply for asylum in Russia until he can travel on to Latin America.

The Russian president conspicuously refrained from indicating if or when he might grant asylum to the world’s most famous fugitive.

Putin said earlier this month that Snowden could claim asylum in Russia only if he stopped his leaks.

The condition initially prompted Snowden to withdraw his application, before the rights activists who met him on Friday said he had promised not to harm US interests in the future.

“Judging by his latest statement, he is somewhat changing his position, but the situation has not been finally clarified so far,” Putin said.

Russia’s Federal Migration Service said earlier Monday that it had not yet received an application from Snowden.

Putin, who is set to host US President Barack Obama for a bilateral summit in Moscow followed by the G20 summit in Saint Petersburg in early September, reiterated Russia’s refusal to damage ties with Washington for Snowden’s sake.

“‘We have certain ties with the United States. We do not want you through your activity to damage our ties with the States,'” he said he had told Snowden.

“He said ‘no’. You are laughing but I am serious,” added Putin, addressing a group of students.

He said Snowden had vowed to continue his activism.

“We said: ‘That will be without us, then. We have other battles to fight,'” he said with a smile.

Snowden, whose passport has been revoked by Washington, has been marooned in the airport’s transit zone for the past three weeks.

In a sign that Moscow may seriously consider an application from him, the speaker of the lower house of parliament, the State Duma, Sergei Naryshkin, said Friday that Snowden could apply for either temporary asylum or political asylum.

Requests for political asylum are reviewed by the Kremlin and granted by the president.

Observers have noted that Snowden’s Friday meeting did not include some figures likely to upset Putin, such as Russia’s best-known rights campaigners or organisations that deal with refugees.

But among those invited were figures such as Vyacheslav Nikonov, a lawmaker from ruling party United Russia, who would probably not have been known to Snowden before his arrival in Russia.

Washington has reacted sharply to the possibility that Moscow might offer Snowden a safe haven and accused it of providing him a “propaganda platform”.

Fugitive US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden has requested a meeting with human rights groups in Moscow, Russian officials say.

Mr Snowden wants to meet them later on Friday at Sheremetyevo airport, where he is thought to be staying.

The former CIA contractor is wanted by the US on charges of leaking secrets about US surveillance schemes.

He has sent requests for political asylum to at least 21 countries, most of which have turned down his request.

However, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Venezuela have indicated they could take him in.

Mr Snowden planned to make a statement on Friday, Russia’s Interfax news agency quoted an unnamed airport source as saying.

The American, who has been stuck in transit since arriving in Moscow from Hong Kong on 23 June, has sent meeting requests to leading human rights organisations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

“I can confirm that such a meeting will take place,” an airport spokeswoman said.

Sergei Nikitin, the head of Amnesty International’s Russia office, confirmed he had received an invitation and planned to attend the gathering.

Prominent Moscow lawyer Genrikh Padva is also reported to have been invited.

Washington wants to prosecute Mr Snowden over the leaking of thousands of classified US intelligence documents.

The leaking of classified intelligence documents has led to revelations that the US is systematically seizing vast amounts of phone and web data.

The case has strained relations between the US and China.

President Barack Obama said on Thursday he was “disappointed” that China had chosen not to hand over Mr Snowden to the US authorities when he was in Hong Kong in June.

A US government official said the decision had undermined calls for co-operation between the two countries

But China said Hong Kong – which allowed to Mr Snowden to leave Russia – had acted in accordance with the territory’s law.

CARACAS:  Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro offered asylum to former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden on Friday in defiance of Washington, which is demanding his arrest for divulging details of secret U.S. spy programs.

“In the name of America’s dignity … I have decided to offer humanitarian asylum to Edward Snowden,” Maduro told a military parade marking Venezuela’s independence day.

“He is a young man who has told the truth, in the spirit of rebellion, about the United States spying on the whole world.”

The 30-year-old former National Security Agency contractor is believed to be holed up in the transit area of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo international airport.

Russian officials have kept Snowden at arm’s length since he landed from Hong Kong on June 23, saying the transit area where passengers stay between flights is neutral territory and he will be on Russian soil only if he goes through passport control.

It was not immediately clear how Snowden would react to Maduro’s offer, nor reach Venezuela if he accepted.

There are no direct commercial flights between Moscow and Caracas, and the usual route involves changing planes in Havana. It is not clear if the Cuban authorities would let him transit.

Given the dramatic grounding in Vienna of the Bolivian president’s plane this week over suspicions that Snowden was onboard, using European airspace could prove problematic.

One alternative flight plan would involve an aircraft taking off from Moscow, refueling in Vladivostok, and then continuing east over the Pacific to South America.

Russia has shown signs of growing impatience over Snowden’s stay in Moscow. Its deputy foreign minister said on Thursday that Snowden had not sought asylum in that country and needed to choose a place to go.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Russia had received no request for political asylum from Snowden and he had to solve his problems himself after 11 days in the transit area of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport.

President Vladimir Putin has refused to extradite the American and Russian officials have delighted in his success in staying out of the United States’ clutches since revealing details of secret U.S. government surveillance programs.

But Moscow has also made clear that Snowden is an increasingly unwelcome guest because the longer he stays, the greater the risk of the diplomatic standoff over his fate causing lasting damage to relations with Washington.

“He needs to choose a place to go,” Ryabkov told Reuters. “As of this moment, we do not have a formal application from Mr Snowden asking for asylum in the Russian Federation.”

Ryabkov told Itar-Tass news agency separately that Russia “cannot solve anything for him” and the situation should now be resolved “one way or the other”.

His remarks echoed comments by President Vladimir Putin, who has urged Snowden, 30, to leave as soon as he can.

France and Italy, both U.S. allies, said they had rejected asylum requests from Snowden.

“Like many countries France has received, via its ambassador in Moscow, an asylum request from Edward Snowden. For legal reasons and given the applicant’s situation, it will not be processed,” Interior Minister Manuel Valls said in a statement.

Valls said earlier on Thursday that France’s relations with the United States would not allow it to harbor Snowden.

Italian Foreign Minister Emma Bonino said any asylum request would have to be presented in person at the border or in Italian territory which Snowden had not done.

“As a result there do not exist the legal conditions to accept such a request, which in the government’s view would not be acceptable on a political level either,” she told parliament.

Relations between Snowden and the Russian authorities appear to have soured when Putin said on Monday that he could only be granted asylum by Moscow if he agreed to stop actions that could harm the United States.

Putin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, said on Tuesday that Snowden had withdrawn his interest in asylum in Russia after Putin spelled out the terms. His options have narrowed further since then as no country has agreed to grant him asylum.

KEEPING RELATIONS ON AN EVEN KEEL

Russian officials have kept Snowden at arm’s length since he landed from Hong Kong on June 23, saying the transit area where passengers stay between flights is neutral territory and he will be on Russian soil only if he goes through passport control.

Moscow has also done nothing to trumpet his presence or parade him before cameras and Putin has avoided the temptation to mock Obama when asked about the affair in public. He said last week he would prefer not to deal with it at all.

Relations with Washington have been strained since Putin’s return to the presidency last year. He has accused the United States of backing protesters demanding his removal and Washington is worried that he is cracking down on dissent.

But there have been signs of an improvement as the sides try to cooperate more on security since the April 15 Boston marathon bombings, in which two ethnic Chechens are the main suspects. The United States has also shown some restraint in its remarks.

“We continue to talk with the Russian government every day (about Snowden), absolutely every day, including myself,” U.S. ambassador Michael McFaul told reporters. “We hope to resolve this … in a way that we want to have it ended and so far we’re very happy with our interactions with the Russian government.”

Russia’s Interfax news agency underlined Washington’s own determination to keep ties on an even keel, quoting an unnamed source as saying Snowden’s case had not been raised by U.S. Justice Department officials at recent talks in Moscow.

Russia has, however, reveled in the diplomatic fallout since Bolivian President Evo Morales, a Putin ally, was held up on his way home from an energy meeting in Moscow because a number of European countries refused initially to let his plane into their airspace over suspicions that Snowden was on board.

Bolivia blamed the delays on Washington and the Russian Foreign Ministry criticized three European Union member states.

“The actions of the authorities of France, Spain and Portugal could hardly be considered friendly actions towards Bolivia,” it said. “Russia calls on the international community to comply strictly with international legal principles.”

MOSCOW: NSA leaker Edward Snowden’s attempts to seek refuge outside the United States hit hurdles Tuesday, after Russian media reported he canceled his asylum bid in Russia and several European countries said such applications wouldn’t be considered if they were made from abroad.

Russian news agencies Tuesday quoted President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying that Snowden withdrew his request when he learned about the terms Moscow has set out. Putin said on Monday that Russia is ready to shelter Snowden as long as he stops leaking U.S. secrets.

At the same time, Putin said he had no plans to turn over Snowden to the United States.

Several of the other countries where the WikiLeaks says Snowden has applied for asylum have said he cannot apply from abroad. Officials in Germany, Norway, Austria, Poland, Finland and Switzerland all said he must make his request on their soil.

WikiLeaks said requests have also been made to Bolivia, Brazil, China, Cuba, Ecuador, France, Iceland, India, Italy, Ireland, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Spain and Venezuela.

Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro, who is visiting Moscow, told Russian reporters on Tuesday that his country has not received an application for asylum from Snowden. Maduro dodged the question whether he may take Snowden away with him to Venezuela.

WikiLeaks also posted a statement attributed to Snowden on its website late Monday, in which he slams President Barack Obama for “using citizenship as a weapon.”

“Although I am convicted of nothing, (the United States) has unilaterally revoked my passport, leaving me a stateless person,” Snowden says in the statement. “Without any judicial order, the administration now seeks to stop me exercising a basic right. A right that belongs to everybody. The right to seek asylum.

“Their purpose is to frighten, not me, but those who would come after me.”

The asylum requests reported by WikiLeaks and the Snowden statement could not be independently authenticated.

LONDON/MOSCOW: Former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden broke his silence on Monday for the first time since fleeing to Moscow over a week ago, blasting the Obama administration and saying he remained free to make new disclosures about U.S. spying activity.

Snowden, who faces espionage charges in the United States and is believed to be staying in a transit area at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport, surfaced with a letter to the Ecuadorean government and in a statement released through anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, which has taken up his cause.

WikiLeaks also released another statement saying Snowden was asking for asylum in several countries, including Russia, China, Brazil, India and Ireland. Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa was quoted in Britain’s Guardian newspaper as saying his country could not consider an asylum request unless Snowden was on Ecuadorean territory.

In his WikiLeaks statement, Snowden accused the Obama administration of deception in a campaign to prevent him from finding political asylum and of “leaving me a stateless person” by revoking his U.S. passport.

Snowden, 30, had not been heard from in the eight days since he flew to Moscow from Hong Kong, where he had first taken refuge after fleeing Hawaii.

Snowden has sought asylum in Ecuador and in an undated letter sent to Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa seen by Reuters, said the United States was illegally persecuting him for revealing its electronic surveillance programme, Prism, but made it clear he did not intend to be muzzled.

‘UNEQUAL WORLD’

“I remain free and able to publish information that serves the public interest,” Snowden, who had been a contract employee for the U.S. National Security Agency, said in the letter.

“No matter how many more days my life contains, I remain dedicated to the fight for justice in this unequal world. If any of those days ahead realise a contribution to the common good, the world will have the principles of Ecuador to thank.”

But in an interview published on the Guardians website on Monday, Correa said giving Snowden a temporary travel pass to fly to Moscow was “a mistake on our part” and that Snowden was now Russia’s problem.

“Are we responsible for getting him to Ecuador? It’s not logical,” he said.

Asked if he would like to meet Snowden, Correa said: “Not particularly. He’s a very complicated person. Strictly speaking, Mr. Snowden spied for some time.”

Snowden said the U.S. government was persecuting him.

“While the public has cried out support of my shining a light on this secret system of injustice, the Government of the United States of America responded with an extrajudicial man-hunt costing me my family, my freedom to travel, and my right to live peacefully without fear of illegal aggression,” Snowden wrote.

In his WikiLeaks statement, Snowden lashed out at President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden for pressing Ecuador to turn him away.

“This kind of deception from a world leader is not justice, and neither is the extralegal penalty of exile,” he said.

“Without any judicial order, the administration now seeks to stop me exercising a basic right,” Snowden said. “A right that belongs to everybody. The right to seek asylum … Their purpose is to frighten, not me, but those who would come after me.”

U.S. Justice Department spokeswoman Nanda Chitre rejected Snowden’s allegation that he was marooned, “since he is still a United States citizen and his country is willing to take him back.”

“As the State Department has already said, the U.S. government is prepared to issue individuals wanted on felony charges a one entry travel document to return home,” she said.

LONG LIST OF COUNTRIES

WikiLeaks disclosed on Monday that Snowden had prepared requests for asylum in countries including Austria, Bolivia, Cuba, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Nicaragua, Norway, Poland, Spain, Switzerland and Venezuela. The requests were given to a Russian official at the airport and were to be delivered to the appropriate embassies in Moscow.

Snowden already has sought asylum in Ecuador and Iceland.

Russian Foreign Ministry and Kremlin officials declined immediate comment.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Snowden could stay in Russia on one condition.

“He must stop his work aimed at harming our American partners, as strange as that sounds coming from my lips,” he told reporters after a gas exporters’ conference in Moscow.

Putin said he suspected that Snowden would continue leaking information because “he feels himself to be a human rights activist.”

“So he must choose a country of destination and go there,” he said, speaking before the asylum request to Russia was reported. “Unfortunately, I don’t know when this will happen.”

Putin said Russia was not working with Snowden and had no intention of handing Snowden over to the United States.

“Russia has never given up anyone to anybody and does not plan to. And nobody ever gave anyone up to us,” Putin said.

Shortly after Snowden fled the United States for Hong Kong in May, and long before he arrived in Russia, Putin suggested the surveillance methods he revealed were justified in fighting terrorism, if carried out lawfully.

Although Russia has sometimes exchanged captured spies with the United States, Putin suggested on Monday that this was not on the cards for Snowden. “As for Mr. Snowden, he is not our agent and he is not working with us,” Putin said.

Obama, at a news conference in Tanzania, repeated that the United States was working through law enforcement channels to prod Russia to extradite Snowden.

MOSCOW: Russia’s foreign minister has rejected U.S. demands to extradite National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, who has apparently stopped in Moscow while trying to evade U.S. justice.

Sergey Lavrov said that Snowden hasn’t crossed the Russian border and insisted that Russia has nothing to do with him, his relations with U.S. justice or his travel plans.

Speaking at a news conference Tuesday, he angrily lashed out at the U.S. demands for the extradition and warnings of negative consequences if Moscow fails to comply.

Lavrov said that accusing Russia of “violation of U.S. laws and even some sort of conspiracy” with regard to Snowden is “absolutely ungrounded and unacceptable.”

He wouldn’t specify the location of Snowden, who booked a Havana-bound flight from Moscow Monday but didn’t show up on the plane.

MOSCOW/HONG KONG (Reuters) – Russia defied White House pressure on Monday to expel former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden to the United States before he flees Moscow on the next stop of his globe-crossing escape from U.S. prosecution.

Snowden, whose exposure of secret U.S. government surveillance raised questions about intrusions into private lives, was allowed to leave Hong Kong on Sunday after Washington asked the Chinese territory to arrest him on espionage charges.
The 29-year-old flew to Moscow as a transit stop before heading elsewhere, several sources said. But reports he would fly to Cuba were put in doubt when witnesses could not see him on the plane, despite heightened security before take-off.
Ecuador, which has sheltered the founder of the WikiLeaks anti-secrecy organization, Julian Assange, said it was considering Snowden’s request for asylum. There is no direct flight to Quito from Moscow.
“He didn’t take the flight (to Havana),” a source at Russia’s national airline Aeroflot told Reuters.
As speculation mounted about where he would go next – Ecuador, Venezuela or Havana at a later date to escape the crowd of journalists on board Monday’s flight – Washington was stung by Russian defiance.
Snowden’s flight to Russia, which like China challenges U.S. dominance of global diplomacy, is an embarrassment to President Barack Obama who has tried to “reset” ties with Moscow and build a partnership with Beijing.
The White House said it expected the Russian government to send Snowden back to the United States and lodged “strong objections” to Hong Kong and China for letting him go.
But the Russian government ignored the appeal and President Vladimir Putin’s press secretary denied any knowledge of Snowden’s movements.
Asked if Snowden had spoken to the Russian authorities, Peskov said: “Overall, we have no information about him.”
He declined comment on the expulsion request but other Russian officials said Moscow had no obligation to cooperate with Washington, after it passed legislation to impose visa bans and asset freezes on Russians accused of violating human rights.
U.S. HYPOCRISY
“Why should the United States expect restraint and understanding from Russia?” said Alexei Pushkov, the head of the foreign affairs committee in the lower house of parliament.
Putin has missed few chances to champion public figures who challenge Western governments and to portray Washington as an overzealous global policeman. But Russian leaders have not paraded Snowden before the cameras or trumpeted his arrival.
Since leaving Hong Kong, where he feared arrest and extradition, Snowden has been searching for a country that can guarantee his security.
Ecuadorean Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino, on a trip to Vietnam, said Quito would analyze his asylum request with a “lot of responsibility”. He was expected to hold a news conference around 7 p.m. (1200 GMT) in Hanoi.
A source at Aeroflot said on Sunday Snowden was booked on the flight due to depart for Havana on Monday at 2:05 p.m. (5:05 a.m. EST). But a correspondent aboard could not see him and the seat he was supposed to occupy, 17a, was taken by another passenger.
A State Department official said Washington had told countries in the Western Hemisphere that Snowden “should not be allowed to proceed in any further international travel, other than is necessary to return him to the United States”.
Despite the Kremlin denials, U.S. Senator Charles Schumer said Putin had probably known about and approved Snowden’s flight to Russia.
“Putin always seems almost eager to stick a finger in the eye of the United States,” Schumer, a senior Senate Democrat, told CNN’s “State of the Union”. He also saw “the hand of Beijing” in Hong Kong’s decision to let Snowden leave.
But taking the higher ground after being accused of hacking computers abroad, the Chinese Foreign Ministry expressed “grave concern” over Snowden’s allegations that the United States had hacked computers in China.
It said it had taken up the issue with Washington.
CHILL
Some Russians have praised Snowden’s revelations. Others fear a new chill in relations with the United States.
“We are a pretty stubborn country and so is the United States. Both are mighty countries, so I would say this has a good potential to turn into a big fuss in bilateral relations,” said Ina Sosna, manager of a Moscow cleaning company.
“I guess it would be best if they just let him move on from Russia to avoid any more controversy over him being here.”
Snowden was assisted in his escape by WikiLeaks, whose founder Assange said he had helped to arrange documents from Ecuador.
Ecuador, like Cuba and Venezuela, is a member of the ALBA bloc, an alliance of leftist governments in Latin America that pride themselves on their “anti-imperialist” credentials. The Quito government has been sheltering Assange at its London embassy for the past year.
The New York Times quoted Assange as saying in an interview that his group had arranged for Snowden to travel on a “special refugee document” issued by Ecuador last Monday.
U.S. sources said Washington had revoked Snowden’s passport. WikiLeaks said diplomats and Sarah Harrison, a British legal researcher working for the anti-secrecy group, accompanied him.
Snowden, who had worked at a U.S. National Security Agency facility in Hawaii, had been hiding in Hong Kong, a former British colony that returned to China in 1997, since leaking details about secret U.S. surveillance programs to news media.
Snowden has been charged with theft of federal government property, unauthorized communication of national defense information and willful communication of classified communications intelligence to an unauthorized person, with the latter two charges falling under the U.S. Espionage Act.
(Additional reporting by Gabriela Baczynska and Alexei Anishchuk in Moscow, Martin Petty in Hanoi, Sui-Lee Weein in Beijing,; Andrew Cawthorne, Mario Naranjo and Daniel Wallis in Caracas, Alexandra Valencia in Quito and Mark Felsenthal, Paul Eckert and Mark Hosenball in Washington; Writing by Timothy Heritage and Elizabeth Piper, Editing by)

LONDON: Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor wanted by the United States for revealing highly classified surveillance programs, is going to Ecuador to seek asylum, the South American country’s foreign minister and the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks said Sunday.

WikiLeaks, which says it is giving Snowden legal assistance, said in a statement his asylum request will be formally processed once he arrives in Ecuador. Ricardo Patino, the country’s foreign minister, said on his Twitter account that his government has received a request for asylum from Snowden.

“He is bound for the Republic of Ecuador via a safe route for the purposes of asylum, and is being escorted by diplomats and legal advisors from WikiLeaks,” the anti-secrecy group said on its website.

Snowden was believed to have landed in Russia on Sunday after being allowed to leave Hong Kong.

He was on an Aeroflot flight from Hong Kong that arrived in Moscow shortly after 5 p.m. (1300gmt) Sunday and was booked on a flight to fly to Cuba on Monday, the Russian news agencies ITAR-Tass and Interfax reported, citing unnamed airline officials.

Snowden did not leave Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport with the other passengers and was not seen by a crowd of journalists waiting in the arrivals lounge. Interfax reported that he was spending the night in the transit zone of the airport because he did not have a visa to enter Russia and had rented a room in a capsule hotel.