Hunt for missing USA secrets man continues

Lancaster-born Edward Snowden (33) was inundated with thousands of Twitter interactions when his 29-year-old namesake handed top-secret documents to the international press.

And the story has continued to hit the headlines as the whereabouts of the fugitive US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden have become something of a mystery

Mr Snowden flew to Moscow from Hong Kong on Sunday but Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has insisted he had not crossed the Russian border.

“We are in no way involved with either Mr Snowden, his relations with US justice, nor to his movements around the world,” Mr Lavrov said.

“He chose his itinerary on his own. We learnt about it... from the media. He has not crossed the Russian border.

The 30-year-old IT expert is wanted by the US for revealing details of a secret government surveillance programme, which he obtained while working as a contractor for the National Security Agency. He is charged with theft of government property, unauthorised communication of national defence information and wilful communication of classified communications intelligence.

Mr Snowden has applied for asylum in Ecuador.

Meanwhile, back in the UK, the local estate agent director with the same name has been bombarded with messages on his social networking site, where he goes by the name of @edwardsnowden.