The BMW, circling around Terminal F for a while, left the scene without discharging anybody.
Moscow (ANTARA News/Xinhua-OANA) - Two and a half hours before the scheduled take-off of a flight on which U.S. intelligence whistleblower Edward Snowden was expected to travel, a car of the Ecuadorian embassy in Russia appeared Monday en route to Moscow`s Sheremetyevo International Airport.

It was the same car that Xinhua correspondents saw a day earlier at the airport, when Snowden reportedly arrived from Hong Kong.

Flying an Ecuadorian national flag, the black BMW carrying at least three people was heading in the direction of the airport. It was not long before the BMW suddenly pulled over at the left side of the highway and a sturdy dark-suited man with a neatly-trimmed mustache opened the door and looked backward with sharp and wary eyes.

Xinhua correspondents decided not stop their car but slowly pulled ahead of the BMW. And minutes later the embassy car overtook them again, but surprisingly it was no longer hanging the Ecuadorian national flag.

Upon entering the Sheremetyevo complex, the car steered swiftly toward Terminal F, where Snowden reportedly arrived Sunday.

Local media reported earlier that the whistleblower was not allowed to get out of the airport and had to stay in the terminal`s transit zone until boarding another flight since he has no Russian visa.

Mounting reports referred to the Aeroflot flight SU150, which had been scheduled to take off from Terminal D at 14:05 Moscow time (1005 GMT), as the transit plane for Snowden to fly to Havana, Cuba.

The BMW, circling around Terminal F for a while, left the scene without discharging anybody.

The plane took off with a delay of some 40 minutes. And reporters eager to make headlines were disappointed as Snowden was not found anywhere aboard the flight. Some even made jokes of their "unlucky" colleagues via Twitter, saying there was "no drink served on the Aeroflot flight to Havana."

Later in the day, only the driver was seen getting off the BMW when it returned to the embassy compound. It was not clear where the passengers had gone, and Snowden`s whereabouts had thus become a mystery.

Ecuador had received an asylum request from Snowden, confirmed Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino Aroca via Twitter on Sunday. Patino, who was on an official visit to Vietnam, told a news conference Monday in Hanoi that the Ecuadorian government was "analyzing and considering the request."

The 30-year-old intelligence contractor is the target of a U.S. arrest warrant as he was charged by Washington with espionage and theft of government property following his disclosure of massive secret phone and Internet surveillance programs of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA).
(U.C003)

Reporter: Liu Hongxia
Editor: Priyambodo RH
Copyright © ANTARA 2013