The John Sopinka Courthouse, where Karim Baratov appeared in front of a judge, in connection with a U.S. Justice Department investigation into the 2014 hacking of Yahoo, is pictured in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada March 15, 2017 . REUTERS/Peter Power

TORONTO (Reuters) - Karim Baratov, the 22-year-old Kazakh-Canadian dual citizen accused of involvement in a massive hack of Yahoo accounts that the United States says was orchestrated by Russian spies, is a “political scapegoat,” his lawyer said on Friday.

“We consider (Baratov) to be a political scapegoat,” Amedeo DiCarlo said in a statement sent via text message. “What we don’t want is interference that would jeopardize ...(his) rights to a speedy release and fair trial”.