Russian Citizen Nikulin Extradition to US Was Unjustified - Czech Court

PRAGUE (Sputnik) - The Czech Constitutional Court ruled on Tuesday that the decision of the country's Justice Ministry to extradite Russian citizen Yevgeny Nikulin to the United States last year came in violation of the man's right to judicial protection, a spokeswoman for the court told Sputnik.

"The [Constitutional] Court has overturned the decision of the head of the Justice Ministry from March 29, 2018 [to extradite Nikulin to the United States], ruling that this [decision] violated Mr. Nikulin's legal right to judicial protection," the spokeswoman Miroslava Sedlackova said.

READ MORE: Russian Citizen Nikulin Accused of Hacking Pleads Not Guilty in US Court

The statement comes after Czech police detained Nikulin in cooperation with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation in Prague in 2016. The man was accused by the United States of illegally gaining access to data from social network LinkedIn and to the servers Dropbox and Formspring. Nikulin denies the accusations.

Upon the decision of then-Czech Justice Minister Robert Pelikan, the Russian citizen was extradited to the United States in late March 2018.