MOSCOW, July 25 (RIA Novosti) – The detention of Russian citizen Roman Seleznev by the United States earlier this month on a number of hacking charges is an unprecedented case no courts had ever been forced to deal with, Seleznev's US-based lawyer said in an interview with Russia’s International Information Agency Rossiya Segodnya.
“We contend that this case presents an issue of ‘First Impression’ that has never been dealt with before, which is: what happens when US Agents exceed the scope of their statutory powers, and effectuate a rendition of a defendant while he is on foreign territory, and in the course of doing so, violate the law of this country, meaning the United States, violate the laws of the host countries, meaning the Maldives also violate international law along the way,” Ely Goldin stated.
According to Goldin, an acting partner with the Fox-Rothschild LLP law firm, only US law enforcement agents were involved in Seleznev’s detention.
“I believe there are many witnesses who were working in that small airport at the time of the detention and that they will corroborate the fact that it was US Law Enforcement Agents and only US law enforcement agents that physically took Mr. Seleznev into custody and whisked him away into a private jet,” she stressed.
In an update on the case, Goldin said that Roman Seleznev was "transferred to a prison infirmary where he is receiving a US analogue of medication for a condition he received after surviving a terrorist attack in Morocco in 2011,” and voiced concerns that “due to the difference in the Russian and US medications there may be complications.”
The lawyer expressed hope that the defendant would soon be released with all the charges against him dropped.
On July 5, Russian citizen Roman Seleznev aged 30, was arrested at an airport in the Maldives, based on an Interpol Red Notice and taken to the US island of Guam. Reacting to Russia's outrage over the decision to hand him over to the US authorities, the Foreign Ministry of the Maldives said it was following "standard procedures" for such cases, as the country has no legislation on extradition.
He is accused by the US authorities of hacking in point-of-sale systems at a number of US shops to steal credit card data from customers. If convicted of bank fraud, he would face up to 30 years in prison. The other charges carry significant sentences as well.
The Russian Foreign Ministry called the incident an unfriendly move by the US and a de facto kidnapping.
