Diplomat: Russian citizens’ extradition by third countries upon US requests unacceptable

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Russian citizens’ arrests abroad on US requests ‘inadmissible’ - diplomat

MOSCOW, February 18. /TASS/. Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told reporters on Thursday that the detention and extradition of Russian citizens by third countries upon US requests is unacceptable.

The diplomat commented on Norway’s recent decision to extradite to the United States Russian citizen Mark Vartanyan who has been under arrest since 2014. Vartanyan is accused of spreading more than 50 files through the Internet to install computer virus Citadel and control the infected computers.

Zakharova said this "has nothing in common with the true interests of justice and means that norms of the international law are ignored." "If this was indeed the need to curb the criminal activity, it would be right to send a respective request to Russia, a country whose citizen Vartanyan is."

The lawyers of Vartanyan plan to appeal against the decision that will be considered by Norway’s authorities, she said. "We hope that eventually an unbiased approach will prevail that meets the generally recognized criteria of justice."