Updated at 9:36 a.m. Eastern
MOSCOW National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden officially filed papers Tuesday seeking temporary asylum in Russia.
Lawyer Anatoly Kucherena said Snowden submitted the asylum request to an official from Russia's Federal Migration Service at the airport where he has been holed-up for weeks. The Migration Service later confirmed that it had received the 20-page application and that it would be processed within the "statutory period".
CBS News' Svetlana Berdnikova reports that, according to legal analysts in Moscow, the Russian government will be able to issue Snowden with temporary documentation to allow him to move freely around Russia once the application is processed by the Migration Service. It can take up to five days for that preliminary review of the application to be completed.
The full examination of his request for refugee status can take the Migration Service three months -- and that period can be doubled if the agency feels more time is necessary to weigh the merits of his request. If asylum is granted, it would permit Snowden to live and work in Russia for up to one year, and could then be renewed.
Snowden has been stuck in Sheremetyevo's transit zone since he arrived from Hong Kong on June 23.
He said Friday at a meeting with Russian rights activists and public figures that he would seek at least temporary refuge in Russia until he could fly to one of the Latin American nations that have offered him asylum.
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