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HONG KONG — A Sri Lankan household that sheltered the previous Nationwide Safety Company contractor Edward J. Snowden after he fled to Hong Kong in 2013 has been given asylum in Canada, an support group supporting the household stated Tuesday.
Supun Thilina Kellapatha and Nadeeka Dilrukshi Nonis landed in Toronto on Tuesday with their kids, Sethumdi and Dinath. They deliberate to journey on to Montreal and settle there as everlasting residents.
“That is one of the best information I’ve heard in a protracted, very long time,” Mr. Snowden tweeted.
The transfer ends a protracted interval of uncertainty for the household, who had sought asylum in Hong Kong however had been denied it in 2017. Mr. Kellapatha had stated he was tortured in Sri Lanka.
“After over a decade in limbo, they’ll now start to construct new lives in Canada, reunited with the remainder of their household and freed from the fixed concern and fear that marked their existence as high-profile asylum seekers in Hong Kong,” Marc-André Séguin, the president of the help group For the Refugees, said in a statement.
Mr. Kellapatha and Ms. Nonis had put up Mr. Snowden for about three days of their 250-square-foot residence in Hong Kong in 2013, simply after the contractor had turn out to be the main focus of intense world consideration for his revelations about secret United States surveillance packages.
“He stated, ‘You’re a good man,’” when he arrived, Mr. Kellapatha recalled in 2016. “However I really feel he’s higher than me as a result of he revered me.”
Mr. Kellapatha stated he didn’t fear about internet hosting Mr. Snowden and believed it was the previous contractor who was most in danger. The household later used $200 that Mr. Snowden left for them beneath a pillow to purchase meals and clothes for his or her daughter, Sethumdi.
The keep was organized by a lawyer, Robert Tibbo, beneath the assumption that cramped refugee residences in poor Hong Kong neighborhoods had been the final place anybody would search for one of many world’s most needed males. That assumption proved appropriate. Mr. Snowden, after a quick keep on the luxurious Mira Resort, vanished from public view as he moved from one refugee residence to a different.
After about two weeks, he left for exile in Moscow, the place he stays right this moment. He faces legal costs in america for disclosure of labeled info.
A Filipino refugee who additionally sheltered Mr. Snowden, Vanessa Mae Bondalian Rodel, was granted asylum in 2019 in Canada along with her daughter, Keana Nihinsa. Canada has not but accredited the applying for an additional refugee who sheltered Mr. Snowden, Ajith Pushpakumara. Mr. Pushpakumara, from Sri Lanka, stated he abandoned the nation’s navy and faces potential execution if he’s despatched again.
“We now have little doubt that Ajith’s utility will finally be accepted, as these others have been, however each day he stays in Hong Kong places him in danger,” Mr. Séguin stated within the assertion. “It’s time for Canada to chop by means of the pink tape and end processing his utility.”
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