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Both Russia, U.S. ask for extradition of suspected hacker from Czech Republic

Xinhua, November 24, 2016 Adjust font size:

After the United States, Russia has officially requested the Czech Republic for the extradition of Russian Yevgeni Nikulin, who was detained in Prague in October on suspicion of computer hacking, said Czech Justice Ministry spokeswoman Tereza Schejbalova on Wednesday.

The United States charges Nikulin for having attacked the Linkedin social network and the servers of the Dropbox and Formspring companies.

The Californian federal court previously charged Nikulin of a hacker's attack, theft and conspiracy.

According to the U.S. investigators, Nikuklin used the Internet to hack computers of the Linkedin professional network on March 3-4, 2012 and he gained passwords of their users with the intent to either sell the stolen data or use them for an unauthorised access to further computers and accounts.

Russia sought Nikulin's extradition for his crime committed in Moscow on April 2, 2009, in particular a theft of finances amounting 3,450 U.S. dollars from the damaged T.A.P. through the Webmoney electronic payment system.

Schejbalova said that both extradition requests from the United States and Russia shall be referred to the preliminary investigation of the Municipal Public Prosecutor's Office in Prague. Conditions of the extradition admissibility in each of the requests will be assessed individually.

The U.S. Embassy asked for Nikulin's extradition in a note submitted to the Czech Foreign Ministry on Nov. 16. The Foreign Ministry sent the U.S. request to the Justice Ministry on Tuesday. However, on the same day, the Czech Justice Ministry received an extradition request from the Russian General Prosecutor's Office also issued on Nov. 16.

The admissibility of the man's extradition to the United States or Russia will be decided by the Prague Municipal Court after the prosecutor's office submits proposal.

If there are several requests for extradition of the same person, the court will assess the admissibility of extradition in relation to each of these applications separately, said the court spokeswoman Marketa Puci.

She said it might happen that the extradition to both countries would be admissible according to the court's verdict, then the final decision will be up to the Justice Minister who can decide to which country the person will be extradited regardless of court verdict.

Czech police detained Nikulin in a Prague hotel in cooperation with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). He was in the Czech Republic with his girl friend.

After the arrest Nikulin collapsed and has to be hospitalised. He is now in custody.

Russia said it would do its utmost to prevent the extradition of Nikulin to the United States. Endit