Kazakhstan will decide on the extradition of Kislitsyn to the Russian Federation or the United States after verification

Kazakhstan will decide on the extradition of FACCT (former Group-IB in Russia and the CIS) employee Nikita Kislitsyn, who was arrested at the request of Russia, after verification. About this “Interfax” told representative of the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Republic Darkhan Duysembay.

He noted that on August 1, only the prosecutor’s request for extradition arrest against Kislitsyn was granted, no decision was made on the direct extradition of the Russian. “Issues of extradition (satisfaction or refusal on requests) were not the subject of judicial consideration, since they were assigned by the criminal procedure legislation to the competence of the prosecutor’s office,” Duisembay emphasized.

According to him, the department needs to complete the extradition check, after which a decision will be made on requests from Russia and the United States to extradite Kislitsyn.

Earlier on August 1, the Russian Consulate General reported that by a court decision, Kislitsyn was subjected to extradition arrest for a period of 12 months at the request of Russia. They stressed that he would not be extradited to the United States.

Kislitsyn was detained at the request of the United States in Kazakhstan on June 22. Later, on June 28, the Tverskoy Court of Moscow put him 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 his official position) and granted the request of the investigation for arrest in absentia. As a source familiar with the circumstances of the case noted in a conversation with Vedomosti, the Russian side could initiate a criminal case in order to extradite Kislitsyn not to the United States, but to Russia, there is already a precedent for this. Under this article in Russia he faces up to five years in prison.

Consul-Counselor of the Consulate General of Russia in Alma-Ata Artem Oganov toldthat the Code of Criminal Procedure of Kazakhstan provides for extradition only if the statute of limitations has not expired for the crime. According to Oganov, the statute of limitations has already expired on the US charges. In addition, Deputy Prosecutor General of Kazakhstan Ulan Baizhanov argued that the Russian request for the extradition of Kislitsyn has priority over the American because of his citizenship.

In 2020, the US authorities accused Kislitsyn, who was at that time a top manager of Group-IB, of conspiring to sell data that his accomplice stole from the Formspring social network in 2012. The company then called the accusations unsubstantiated and noted that the alleged the crimes occurred prior to Kislitsyn’s employment with Group-IB.