“We were removed as his lawyers from the jury,” RIA Novosti quoted lawyer Arkady Bukh as saying.
According to him, the defense insisted on the inadmissibility of Nikulin being brought to trial because of his unstable mental state, but the judge did not agree with the arguments and appointed him state attorneys.
He also noted that the opportunity to represent the interests of the client on other issues remains.
“If he is convicted following a jury trial in early January, we will appeal,” Buch added.
In June, it was reported that a jury trial in the United States in the Nikulin case was scheduled for January 13, 2020.
Evgeny Nikulin was arrested by the Czech police at the request of the FBI in October 2016. He is accused of illegally gaining access to data from the LinkedIn social network and Dropbox and Formspring servers.