Vanessa Rodel smiles during a media scrum after arriving with her daughter Keana to the Toronto airport on a flight from Hong Kong, in Toronto, Canada, March 25, 2019 (Cole BURSTON)

Montreal (AFP) – A woman granted asylum in Canada after sheltering Edward Snowden urged Ottawa on Tuesday to take in five others who helped the fugitive former US government contractor and are facing deportation from Hong Kong.

Vanessa Rodel and her seven-year-old daughter Keana landed in Toronto late Monday on a flight from Hong Kong.

At a news conference the following morning, she expressed joy and eagerness to start a new life but said five others including her daughter’s father and two step-siblings remain in Hong Kong awaiting an appeal decision in their cases.

“I hope we can grow together in Canada,” she said.

Lawyer Marc-Andre Seguin, of the non-governmental group For the Refugees, which sponsored Rodel and her daughter, said one of group faces “certain death” if returned to Sri Lanka.

“We are very happy of course that Canada has agreed to give Vanessa and Keana protection, but we are still worried about the fate of those who remain behind,” he said.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said those decisions are made by immigration officials on “a case by case basis.”

The group put up the former CIA employee and US National Security Agency (NSA) contractor in their tiny apartments in 2013 while he was in Hong Kong on the run from US authorities.

His leaks of highly classified documents revealed the existence of global surveillance programs run by the NSA in cooperation with partners Australia, Britain and Canada.

Snowden, who now lives in Russia, was charged in June 2013 in the United States with espionage and stealing state secrets. 

Canada granted Rodel, a Philippine national, and her daughter asylum in January but it was kept secret for security reasons, according to For the Refugees.

She was due to travel to Montreal later in the day where she and her daughter will settle.

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