The UN Human Rights Committee, seized by the defense of the young Frenchman Sébastien Raoult accused of cybercrime, called on Tuesday for the suspension of his extradition from Morocco to the United States, a few days after it was intervened.
According to corroborating sources, the Committee registered the request made on January 17 to examine the case of this young man, arrested in Morocco in May on the basis of a red notice issued by Interpol at the request of American justice.
Member of “ShinyHUnters”
The UN committee also indicated that it had asked "
not to extradite the author to the United States while his request was being examined
", according to a letter consulted on Wednesday by AFP.
Sébastien Raoult was nevertheless extradited on January 25 and presented three days later in a Seattle court, where he pleaded "
not guilty
".
He is accused of being a member of the “ShinyHUnters”, a group of “
cybercriminals
” suspected by American justice of being behind corporate cyberattacks.
"
One can wonder, Morocco being informed of our request, if the precipitation of the extradition of Sébastien was not a strategy to escape an injunction of the committee
", estimated the father of the young man, Paul Raoult.
On January 25, the spokesperson for the Quai d'Orsay, Anne-Claire Legendre, said that "
the timetable for the extradition of Sébastien Sébastien Raoult
" fell under "
sovereign relations between Morocco and the United States
".
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But for the young man's French lawyer, Me Philippe Ohayon, who sent a letter to Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna on Wednesday, "
it is no longer a bilateral affair which concerns only the United States and Morocco, but also France
" because the Human Rights Committee is "
seized on the basis of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
".
In the United States, the ex-student faces up to 116 years in prison if convicted, according to his lawyer.