Anatoly Kucherena

Anatoly Kucherena

Anatoly Grigorievich Kucherena (Russian: Анатолий Григорьевич Кучерена; born August 23, 1960) is a Russian attorney, public figure, Doctor of Law, and professor. From mid-2013, Kucherena has represented former NSA contractor Edward Snowden's interests in the Russian Federation. Kucherena continues to represent Snowden pro bono on an occasional basis. In 2013, according to Izvestia, he was known as a person spoken pro forbidding anonymizer software, prosecuting development, distribution and usage of it by including them into "malware" software category (which contradicts the terminology used in the industry).In June 2014, American film director Oliver Stone acquired rights to a screen adaptation of Kucherena's novel, Time of the Octopus, the story of fictional American whistleblower Joshua Kold. Threatened by his government and waiting for a decision on his request for Russian asylum, Cold spends three weeks in the transit area of the Moscow airport. Stone said, "Anatoly has written a 'grand inquisitor'-style Russian novel weighing the soul of his fictional whistleblower against the gravity of a 1984 tyranny that has achieved global proportions." The book, first in a "psychological-political thriller trilogy," is set to be released on March 3, 2015, according to state news agency RIA Novosti. The Moscow Times reported that Kucherena said Snowden had already received a copy of the book and liked it. In April 2015, WikiLeaks revealed that Oliver Stone paid $1 million for the movie rights to Kucherena's novel.