Russian accused of hacking ‘may die in US prison’

The lawmaker father of a disabled Russian man detained by Washington on hacking charges said on Friday his son was being kept in one of the worst US prisons and would die without medical help.

Moscow has accused US authorities of abducting Roman Seleznev in the Maldives and secretly transporting him to Guam in a case that further piqued Kremlin’s anger amid a showdown over Ukraine.

The man’s father Valery Seleznev told a news conference that his son needed to take medication daily and would die without medical help in a matter of days.

“If he does not take it (medication) for three, five days at the most then… he would die and die very soon,” he said.

“One of the goals is to let him rot there.”

Roman Seleznev suffered brain damage in a bomb attack in Morocco in 2011 and has problems with motor skills, according to his family.

Citing lawyers who had made contact with his son on Thursday, the lawmaker, a member of the ultra-nationalist Liberal Democratic Party, said US officials wanted him to incriminate himself.

“Right now they are piling pressure on him,” he said, adding that the officials had promised to transfer him to Seattle if he admitted guilt.

“The lawyers describe the prison as one of — and maybe the worst — prison under US jurisdiction.”

Roman Seleznev is charged with hacking into US retail computer systems and installing malicious software to steal credit card numbers in a scheme that operated between October 2009 and February 2011.

Seleznev and his accomplices allegedly stole over 200,000 credit card numbers, with bank losses from the scheme estimated at over $1.1 million (800,000 euros), according to a 2011 indictment.

He faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted.

The Russian foreign ministry has accused Washington of abducting one of its nationals in what it described as a “hostile” act.

The ministry’s human rights envoy, Konstantin Dolgov, said on Twitter that a Russian diplomat was expected to visit Seleznev in his Guam prison either Sunday or Monday.

The lawmaker said his son did not plan to confess to a crime he did not commit, adding that he was not a hacker and knew “nothing about these new technologies”.

“My son is sticking to his guns,” he said.