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Russia’s envoy to attend announcement of sentence to alleged Russian cybercriminal

Roman Seleznev is facing 25 years in jail

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NEW YORK, April 21. /TASS/. A representative of the Russian Consulate General in Seattle will attend the announcement of sentence to Russian citizen Roman Seleznev, who has been found guilty of cybercrime by a US court, Russian Deputy Consul General Khalit Aisin told TASS on Friday.

The hearing is scheduled to begin at 09:00 local time (16:00 GMT). The Russian is facing 25 years in jail.

Seleznev’s defense attorney Igor Litvak told TASS that his client was "seriously ill, he suffered a severe injury during a terrorist attack in Morocco in 2011, moreover, he has been diagnosed with hepatitis." "We hope that the court will take his state of health into consideration while deciding on a sentence," Litvak added.

According to the attorney, after the sentence is announced, he will be ready to read out a statement received from Seleznev. The attorney declined to comment on the contents of the statement.

Seleznev case

Roman Seleznev was detained at the international airport of the Republic of Maldives on July 5, 2014. On the same day, he was extradited to the island of Guam, an unincorporated territory of the United States. Guam’s district court refused to release the Russian and handed down a decision to deport him to Seattle, where charges against him were brought.

US investigators suspected Seleznev of having intended to steal and sell information about US citizens’ credit cards between October 2009 and February 2011. According to the investigators, the Russian was involved in the theft of some 200,000 credit card numbers. In August 2016, Seleznev was found guilty of cybercrime charges.

Moscow claims that Seleznev was not arrested but "kidnapped" by the US authorities while the case against him is politically motivated.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry repeatedly voiced protests against the policy of the US authorities that encourage their special services to "literally kidnap our citizens abroad." "The tragic cases of Roman Seleznev and Konstantin Yaroshenko are examples of that policy. The US authorities put these Russian citizens to prison and deliberately deprived them of proper medical assistance," the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

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