Russia: Lithuania’s decision to extradite its citizen to US unacceptable

The Lithuanian court’s decision to extradite Russian citizen Dmitry Ustinov to the United States for having allegedly traded in dual-purpose products is unacceptable, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s commissioner for human rights, democracy and the rule of law Konstantin Dolgov said. “We have to state that the Lithuanian authorities ignored obvious discrepancies in the case in order to please their overseas partners, including the absence of materials that would have confirmed the fact of criminal offence on the part of our compatriot,” he said on Wednesday, August 14. He said Moscow was angered by the attempts of American security services and law enforcement agencies to make arrests and detentions of Russian citizens in third countries under farfetched pretexts a standard practice. Ustinov had been practically cajoled to come to Lithuania where he was detained, he added. “Russian citizen Konstantin Yaroshenko, who has been sentenced by a New York court to a long prison term, was abducted in Liberia in much the same manner,” Dolgov said. “We are not going to put up with the arbitrary actions against our citizens who fall victim to peculiar American ‘justice’. We hope that Washington will think about the consequences of its steps that grossly trample upon international law and will act in accordance with existing procedures that are provided for, among others, in the Russian-American agreement on mutual legal assistance in criminal cases of 1999,” Dolgov said. He said Moscow would provide all possible assistance to Ustinov as a citizen of Russia and would press for full respect for his rights and his speediest return home.