MOSCOW, October 21 (RIA Novosti) - The US secret services falsified the accusations against Roman Seleznev, accused of hacking into US retail businesses, to further exchange him for former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, Valery Seleznev, the father of the alleged cybercriminal said Tuesday.
"I tend to think that this [the accusations against roman] is linked to Snowden," Seleznev said. "They [US secret services] managed somehow to falsify the accusations against my son Roman, and they had certain hopes that the exchange of Roman Seleznev for Snowden was possible," Valery Seleznev said at a briefing held at the Argumenty I Facty weekly.
"I think this is the main version. It shows full incompetence of US secret services," he told RIA Novosti.
"But this kind of exchange is not possible, because Snowden was not arrested in Russia, we do not accuse him of anything, he just asked for asylum in Russia and we met his desire to stay in the Russian federation," Valery Seleznev said adding that the US secret services spent a heavy sum on the operation, so "they would not give Roman away easily."
US prosecutors claim that between October 2009 and October 2013 Roman Seleznev, 30, allegedly hacked into retail point-of-sale systems and installed malicious software to steal more than two million credit card numbers from various businesses.
On July 5, Seleznev was detained by US secret service agents in the Maldives and brought to Guam, and later to Washington. Russian Foreign Ministry and Seleznev's father deemed the detention as a "kidnapping".
Earlier in October, federal prosecutors filed 11 new charges against the alleged hacker, bringing the total number of charges to 40.
Seleznev is to be tried on November 3 in Seattle. He faces up to 30 years in prison if found guilty. His father believes the hearing will be postponed.
