MOSCOW, August 26. /TASS/. The case of Russian citizen Roman Seleznev, whom the jury announced guilty of hacking a U.S. company, is an absolutely inadmissible violation of a Russian citizen’s rights, and diplomats continue all necessary assistance to the man, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Commissioner for Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law Konstantin Dolgov told TASS on Friday.
"In the Seleznev case, we, of course, will continue providing for him the consulate-legal assistance, will support work of lawyers," he said. "The lawyers have said already they will file appeals. This would be possible after the verdict is voiced, thus we have to wait for the verdict."
"However, even now it is clear already in the case with Seleznev we witness a clear and inadmissible absolutely incident of violated right of the Russian citizen," the diplomat said. "We shall continue raising most toughly all these issues to the U.S. side."
He said the Russian Foreign Ministry and the consulate service in Seattle will be watching closely the case. The diplomat continued saying the process against the Russian citizen is "a part of a wider picture, where the U.S. authorities continue hunting the world for Russian citizens causing whatever concerns."
"The U.S. still is not using properly the bilateral Russia-U.S. agreement of 1999 on mutual legal assistance in criminal cases, they do not present properly their claims to our citizens," he said. "The U.S. uses ex-territorially its legislation, which is categorically inadmissible and which violates rights of our citizens."
Roman Seleznev was detained at the international airport of the Maldives’ capital Male on July 5, 2014 and taken to a jail on the island of Guam on cyber fraud charges. The district court of Guam refuses to release Seleznev and decided to relocate him to Seattle in the state of Washington, where the charges against him were initially filed.
American investigators suspected Seleznev of having intended to steal, and then sell, information about the credit cards of U.S. citizens between October 2009 and February 2011. According to the U.S. investigators, he was involved of theft of some 200,000 credit card numbers of American people. The prosecutors brought 40 charges against Seleznev and he faces 30 years in jail.
Moscow claims that Seleznev was not arrested but "kidnapped" by the U.S. authorities and the case against him is politically motivated.
The jury in Seattle said he was guilty under 38 of the 40 charges presented against him. The verdict is due to be voiced on December 2. Neither Seleznev nor his lawyers agree with the jury’s verdict.