REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, MOSCOW -- Edward Snowden needs better security after a news report quoted unnamed U.S. intelligence officials saying they wanted the former spy agency contractor dead and discussing ways to kill him, his Russian lawyer said on Tuesday.

"We are concerned about potential hidden threats that we have heard often recently. In these statements ... they openly call for physical reprisal against Edward Snowden," lawyer Anatoly Kucherena said on state-run Rossiya-24 television.

Without naming any media outlet, he referred to comments reported by the website BuzzFeed, which quoted a Pentagon official as saying he would love to shoot Snowden in the head.

BuzzFeed quoted a U.S. Army intelligence officer as saying the former National Security Agency contractor could be killed Cold War-style, poked with a poisoned needle while returning home from the grocery store.

"Edward, of course, treats these remarks as a real threat to his life because he lives an ordinary life and goes to the store and goes out on the street," said Kucherena.

"Edward must think of his safety, and probably now it is not sufficient for him to have only private guards - it's necessary to think about how to secure his life and health," he said.

Snowden has been well hidden from the public eye since he was granted asylum, with a few photos and video clips emerging from meetings with Western lawmakers and former officials, but Kucherena has repeatedly portrayed him as living a normal life.

Snowden was granted asylum in Russia last summer after fleeing the United States, where he is wanted on espionage charges for leaking information about government surveillance practices.

The American's revelations caused an uproar in the United States over privacy rights and angered many U.S. allies.

Russia's decision to shelter him damaged already strained ties between Moscow and Washington.

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