Ex-KGB agent Boris Karpichkov alleged that a plan was launched for Chapman, 32, to keep US whistleblower Snowden, 31, in Moscow - so the Russians could continue to question him.
The two were said to have met just once - but Chapman proposed in a tweet in July 2013.
Mr Karpichkov told journalist Nigel Nelson for the Sunday People: ‘If Snowden had accepted he would have a right to Russian citizenship. That would lock him in Russia. As a citizen he’d need permission to leave.’
Mr Karpichkov - who fled to Britain after 15 years as a KGB agent, but is still in contact with sources in Moscow - said Snowden became ‘concerned about what the consequences would be’ of being attached to Chapman.
Former Conservative MP Rupert Allason, better-known now as spy writer Nigel West, said that Chapman was ‘sophisticated enough to live with an American’.
Mr Allason told the Sunday People: ‘There aren’t many of those in the FSB (formerly the KGB). She would be prepared to use her obvious gifts.’
In September 2013, Chapman refused to answer questions about the proposal in a bizarre five-minute interview with NBC, and walked out after she was asked about the tweet. She has never publicly commented on it.
Chapman, the daughter of a senior KGB agent, was arrested in 2010 with nine others, accused of working for a spy ring for Russia's external intelligence agency.
She pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy and was deported back to Russia in July 2010 as part of a prisoner swap. She has since become a celebrity in Russia.
She married British public schoolboy Alex Chapman in 2002 and the pair moved to London, but divorced in 2006. When unmasked as a Russian agent, she was stripped of her British passport.
Since returning to Moscow, Chapman - dubbed a 'femme fatale' - has carved out a lucrative career as a TV presenter, model and owner of a fashion brand.
Snowden left his long-term girlfriend Lindsay Mills in Hawaii when he fled the US, and was granted asylum in Moscow in August 2013, after six weeks of waiting at the city's airport.
In the summer Snowden was reunited in Russia with Miss Mills, a pole-dancer. The pair were pictured together on a theatre date in Moscow. Snowden now has a three-year residency permit.
He is wanted in the US after leaking classified details of government surveillance programmes. His critics view him as a traitor, while supporters see him as a hero who spoke up for civil liberties.
(dailymail.com)
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