MOSCOW, July 8 (RIA Novosti) – US embassy in Moscow has not yet commented on the detention in the Maldives of a Russian citizen Roman Seleznev.
“I cannot yet comment on it,” press secretary of the US embassy in Moscow Joseph Kruzich told RIA Novosti on Tuesday.
US authorities accused a 30-year-old Moscow native Roman Seleznev of hacking into point-of-sale systems at a number of US shops to steal credit card data from customers. According to the investigators, Russian citizen installed malware on computers in the shops to obtain the necessary information. Media report that Seleznev is currently awaiting trial on the US island of Guam.
The Russian ministry of foreign affairs requested that the government of Maldives explain the situation, calling the incident an unfriendly move by the US and a de facto kidnapping. According to the ministry, Russian diplomats “are making all possible efforts to clarify the circumstances of the detention of Roman Seleznev and to bring him back to the Motherland as soon as possible”.
According to the media reports, Seleznev is a son of the LDPR (Liberal Democratic Party) party's lawmaker Valeriy Seleznev.
The Russian lawmaker Seleznev cannot get in touch with his son Roman. He told RIA Novosti that his son “could not have been detained on the American territory as there was no way he was physically there,” because he does not have a US visa. The lawmaker, however, did not exclude the fact of kidnapping. He added that Roman currently lives in the city of Vladivostok but has not been answering his phone.
