Morocco Approves Extradition of French Hacking Suspect to US on FBI Request

This final decision was expected after the favorable opinion of the Moroccan justice system pronounced last August. The 21-year-old student was arrested in Morocco on May 31, 2022. Wanted by the FBI, he is suspected of being one of the members of the ShinyHunters hacker group, recalls Lorraine Actu.

Incarcerated in the Tiflet 2 prison, Sébastien learned on Monday, December 26, 2022, that the extradition decree to the United States had been signed, reports the media. The road to American justice has thus been cleared. If found guilty, the young man faces a prison sentence of 116 years. "From the moment the decree was signed, the Americans have 30 days to recover my son," his father, Paul Raoult, said.

However, there is still one last avenue of appeal to prevent this procedure and the father, who is fighting for a trial in France and not in the United States, intends to use it. "Our lawyer has appealed to the Committee against Torture. Morocco has already been pinned down in this regard, because its penal code is not in line with the Convention against Torture. And, in Sébastien’s case, the committee can consider that life imprisonment is a form of torture, that it is degrading to the human being," he said.

Moreover, "the Americans have given no guarantee concerning the possibility of rearranging Sébastien’s sentence," added the father of the young Frenchman who nevertheless confided that this appeal does not suspend the extradition procedure. "I won’t be warned. They’ll just call me to tell me my son has arrived in the United States," he said.