A U.S. judge has refused to dismiss charges against Russian hacking suspect Roman Seleznev, rejecting claims that he was abducted by U.S. agents in the Maldives to stand trial.
A judge in Seattle ruled on December 15 that only illegal torture or other outrageous conduct on the part of U.S. Secret Service agents who took Seleznev into custody would justify throwing out the case against him.
In a 40-count indictment, Seleznev, the son of a Russian parliament member, is accused of hacking into U.S. businesses and selling more than 2 million credit-card numbers online for millions of dollars.
Seleznev's lawyer, Andrea Ostrovsky, maintained his arrest at the Maldives airport violated U.S. and Maldives laws.
"Any agent should know you can't just grab someone and force him on an airplane without any due process at all," Ostrovsky said. "We believe this kind of behavior is outrageous and shocking and should not be sanctioned by this court."
But prosecutors said there was no evidence that the agents were "running amok in a foreign nation." Rather, they carefully worked with authorities in the Maldives to extradite Seleznev.
