By Alastair Sharp
TORONTO, June 5 (Reuters) - A Canadian appeals court justice said on Monday that he would review a bail request by Karim Baratov, a man charged by U.S. prosecutors of involvement in a high-profile breach of Yahoo email accounts.
Baratov, who was born in Kazakhstan but has Canadian citizenship, was arrested in March on U.S. charges that he was paid to break into at least 80 email accounts by Russian intelligence agents who masterminded the 2014 theft of data from some 500 million Yahoo Inc YHOO.O user accounts. Canadian judge denied Baratov bail in April, saying he was a flight risk. Court of Appeal Justice Bradley Miller said on Monday that he would review Baratov's appeal and announce his decision by the end of this week.
Baratov's lawyer said evidence submitted by prosecutors showed his client had a limited role in any plot, breaking into seven email accounts for total payment of $104.20 sent to his PayPal account.
Prosecutor Heather Graham urged the court to refuse the bail request, saying that Baratov and alleged Russian FSB agent Dmitry Aleksandrovich Dokuchaev had been in close contact over 18 months to discuss hacking into email accounts of specific Russian officials.
Canadian prosecutors have said they will try to extradite Baratov to the United States to stand trial. No date has been set for a hearing to consider that request.