Kazakhstan announces priority of extradition of Kislitsyn to Russia

The Russian request for the extradition of FACCT (former Group-IB in Russia and the CIS) Nikita Kislitsyn, who is responsible for developing the network security business, will take precedence over the American because of the citizenship of the detainee. About this in a conversation with RIA Novosti informed Deputy Prosecutor General of Kazakhstan Ulan Baizhanov.

“There is no question of priority, first of all it is citizenship. In this case, the priority belongs to the Russian side. But we will have to make sure that all the acts that he is accused of, including by Russia, are serious enough,” he said.

According to Baizhanov, the Russian and American sides will have to provide evidence of the validity of their request for the extradition of Kislitsyn. In addition, Astana will have to establish whether the alleged charges are criminally punishable in Kazakhstan, Bayzhanov said. He stressed that the measures would be applied only after the proceedings.

Kislitsyn was detained On June 22 in Kazakhstan, FACCT was told about this to Vedomosti the day before, on June 28. According to the company, the US claims against Kislitsyn are not related to his work at FACCT, but to “a case more than 10 years ago when Nikita worked as a journalist and independent researcher.”

On June 28, the Tverskoy Court of Moscow also announced Kislitsyn on the wanted list under Part 3 of Art. 272 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (illegal access to legally protected information using official position). Later court satisfied petition of the investigation for the arrest in absentia of Kislitsyn. As a source familiar with the circumstances of the case noted in a conversation with Vedomosti, the Russian side could initiate a criminal case at home in order to extradite Kislitsyn not to the United States, but to Russia, there is already a precedent for this.

In 2020 US authorities accused Kislitsyn, who was at the time a top manager of Group-IB, in a conspiracy to sell data that his accomplice stole from the Formspring social network in 2012. The company then called the allegations unsubstantiated and noted that the alleged crimes occurred before Kislitsyn worked at the Group -IB.