Kazakhstan agrees to extradite a Russian citizen back to Russia

Kazakhstan has agreed to extradite Russian citizen Nikita Kislitsyn, head of the network security business in the international company F.A.C.C.T., back to Russia. A similar request by the U.S. was rejected by the country’s authorities, the RIA Novosti news agency reported.

What countries wanted Kislitsyn? According to Artem Oganov, the senior council of the Russian Consulate General in Almaty, Kislitsyn was detained by Kazakhstani officials after a Russian court issued a request for his extradition.

The diplomat noted that Kazakhstan decided to extradite Kislitsyn to Russia rather than to the U.S.

The context. As the two countries wanted the Kazakhstani government to extradite Kislitsyn, Kazakhstan took its time and carefully reviewed both requests.

On July 26, Oganov visited Kislitsyn in the Almaty detention center. He was detained by local authorities under the request of the U.S. filled through Interpol.

During that meeting, Kislitsyn said that he had no complaints against the law enforcement agencies of Kazakhstan, the personnel of the detention center and the conditions of him being there. He also said that he wasn’t seeking asylum in Kazakhstan and wanted to go back to Russia.

The company Kislitsyn worked for has hired lawyers who could visit him whenever they want.

«There were no threats against him. We also have no information on whether U.S. officials had attempted to get in touch with Kislitsyn,» Oganov said.

On June 28, a range of Russian media outlets reported that Kislitsyn had been detained, citing the press service of the F.A.C.C.T. company. It turned out that he was detained in Kazakhstan on June 22.

In Russia, Kislitsyn is accused of getting illegal access to sensitive information and taking part in extortion by a criminal group. The Tverskoy Court of Moscow has authorized the arrest of Kislitsyn.

In turn, the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs blamed F.A.C.C.T. for the same crime of illegally gaining access to protected information.

On June 27, Kislitsyn was put on the international wanted list.

On June 29, Deputy Prosecutor General of Kazakhstan Ulan Baizhanov told the Russian RIA Novosti news agency that the country was considering both Russian and American requests to extradite Kislitsyn as equally justified.

According to F.A.C.C.T., Kislitsyn was detained illegally. The company hired lawyers and officially requested the Russian Consulate General in Almaty to intervene. Later, Russian Consul General Yevgeny Bobrov told RIA Novosti that the consulate asked Kazakhstan’s authorities not to rush with the extradition request by the U.S.

In 2020, U.S. authorities accused Kislitsyn, who at the time worked as a top manager in Group-IB, of conspiring to sell data that his accomplice stole from the Formspring social network in 2012.

Group-IB denied any wrongdoing and said that everything U.S. authorities talked about had happened before Kislitsyn joined the company. He worked as the editor-in-chief of Hacker magazine over the period from 2006 to 2012. After that, he was responsible for security threats research in Group-IB.