Sébastien Raoult extradited to the United States: his father regrets the inaction of the French authorities

Gauthier Delomez 6:55 p.m., January 27, 2023

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Sébastien Raoult, a 21-year-old Frenchman, was extradited from Morocco to the United States at the end of January for cybercrime.

He is accused of having stolen the data of large American companies and is the subject of a red card from Interpol.

On the other side of the Atlantic, he now faces up to 116 years in prison.

A few days before his extradition, in the Free antenna of Europe 1, his father Paul believed that French justice had not used all its possibilities to avoid the extradition of his son.

"It's up to a French judge to say" if Sébastien Raoult is innocent or not

"We have elements of what is alleged against (Sébastien Raoult), there are four counts. Is he innocent or not? It's up to a judge to say, and a French judge, quite simply because the facts of which he is accused would have happened from France", advances Paul, recalling that his son is notably being prosecuted for hacking, data theft and identity theft.

"There are other people involved, all of whom are French nationals. This is a French investigation, conducted by a French judge on French territory. So we can ask ourselves: what is America comes to do in there?", Blows the father of Sébastien Raoult at the microphone of Europe 1.

In this case, the 21-year-old would have attacked American companies, which explains his extradition to the United States.

But his father disputes the fact that the FBI has called for this extradition: "It would mean that a kid who steals a hamburger from McDonald's must be tried by the Americans".

No extradition request made by the French authorities

Through this testimony, Paul Raoult denounces the fact that, according to him, "French justice has let things happen".

"Morocco has done its job. There is an Interpol file. They find the person in the country, its purpose is to arrest him and warn the requesting country (...). But Morocco has not absolutely nothing to reproach my son. He does not intervene on the merits of the case. He would have been in another country, it was the same thing, "he tempers at the microphone of Olivier Delacroix, relating that her son had been arrested at the airport as he was about to board the plane to return to France.

Sébastien Raoult's father criticizes the French authorities for not having made an extradition request to France.

"There is an extradition agreement between Morocco and France. So if she had made a request, she became a priority," says Paul Raoult.

"The French authorities refused to make this request on the pretext that it did not concern them (...). From the start, the French authorities acted as if they were not aware of things and that they couldn't do anything, when they are directly concerned because they conducted the investigation," he said.

Last August, Paul Raoult had questioned Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne on the file.

He adds that he has also written to President Emmanuel Macron.

"There were a lot of letters sent (...). We alerted a lot", supports the father of Sébastien Raoult, explaining that on December 26, the decree of extradition to the United States had been notified to his son , despite various appeals.

He must now be presented to an American judge this Friday, January 27 to be notified of the charges against him.

A situation that Paul wanted to avoid at all costs.