Snowden's travels raise concerns of foreign involvement

[struggle4progress]

9. Plane for Cuba Leaves Russia, but Snowden Is Not on Board

By ELLEN BARRY, PETER BAKER and DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
Published: June 24, 2013

... Edward J. Snowden ... did not leave Moscow on a planned flight to Havana ... Mr. Snowden’s vacant seat on the Havana flight raised the possibility that the Russian government had detained him, ... perhaps to question him for Russia’s own purposes. The authorities in Hong Kong said Mr. Snowden boarded an Aeroflot flight to Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport that arrived on Sunday afternoon. But he was never photographed in Hong Kong and has not been seen publicly or photographed since his reported arrival in Moscow. Arriving passengers on that flight, interviewed at the airport, said they could not confirm that he had been aboard ... Security was extremely tight at the gate at Sheremetyevo airport on Monday as agents called passengers to board the Havana-bound Aeroflot aircraft. Police officers stood around the plane on the tarmac, and the entrance to the gate inside the terminal was cordoned off with about 25 feet of blue ribbon ... A police officer asked a member of the ground crew if everyone had arrived. The reply was: “Minus five” ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/25/world/edward-snowden-nsa-surveillance-leak.html