Petition to grant Snowden asylum in Brazil garners 1.1mn signatures

A petition to convince Brazilian president, Dilma Rousseff, to grant NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden an asylum in the country has reportedly garnered support from 1.1 million people.

The 33-year-old former NSA contractor has been charged with espionage by the US for leaking highly classified data about the alleged mass surveillance programmes that have upset US ties with its allies.

According to Washington Times, director of an international campaigning group, Ricken Patel, said that the Brazilian government had announced that it required a formal request from Snowden to grant asylum and now, more than a million people had presented this request in his name.

Snowden had made a request to Rousseff last year for an asylum and offered to assist in investigating the NSA's surveillance operations in the nation.

Snowden's current temporary asylum, granted by Russia, draws to a close in August and the whistleblower has strictly denied returning to the US to face trial under the current laws.