Edward Snowden, who is wanted by the United States for leaking classified information on U.S. surveillance programs and who was granted temporary asylum by Russia, has decided where he is going to live and is in a safe place with friends, a Russian lawyer who helped him with his asylum bid said Friday, Aug 2, according to RIA Novosti.

“Snowden is in a safe place. I didn’t suggest it to him, it was his own decision,” said lawyer Anatoly Kucherena. “He will decide for himself how to live his life from now on. He has friends with him, including Americans with whom he made contact via his friends from the United States when he was still in the [airport] transit zone,” Kucherena said.

The lawyer told journalists Thursday that Snowden’s whereabouts would not be disclosed in the interests of safety of “one of the world’s most wanted fugitives.”

Snowden is wanted in the United States on espionage and theft charges after leaking classified information about the U.S. National Security Agency’s surveillance programs. He spent more than a month in the transit zone of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport after arriving in Russia on a flight from Hong Kong on June 23, and finally left the airport Thursday after receiving a year’s temporary asylum from Russia.