MOSCOW (REUTERS, AFP) - Fugitive former US security contractor Edward Snowden has left Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport, an airport representative said on Thursday.

The representative told Reuters that Snowden had crossed into Russia after spending more than a month in the airport's transit zone.

"Snowden has left Sheremetyevo airport. He has just been given a certificate that he has been awarded temporary asylum in Russia for one year," his lawyer Anatoly Kucherena said. An airport spokeswoman added that he had left within the last two hours.

"I have just seen him off. He has left for a secure location," Kucherena told state broadcaster Russia 24."Security is a very serious matter for him."