RIGA, August 7 (RAPSI) - The Latvian government's decision to extradite to the US Deniss Calovskis, who is accused of cyber crime, will damage the patriotism and loyalty of the citizensry, the vice speaker of the Saeima Andrei Klementyev told RIA Novosti on Wednesday.

"I think the Republic of Latvia shouldn't have extradited its citizen to the US without thoroughly studying the case materials. If Calovskis commited a crime, he should serve out his sentence in Latvia. I think the government with this decision has demonstrated that it is unable to protect its subjects. This will badly damage the patriotic feelings of Latvians," - Klementyev said

The Latvian government on Tuesday has decided to extradite Calovskis, who is suspected of creating the Gozi virus along with Russian national Nikita Kuzmin and Romanian national Mihai Ionut Paunescu. Gozi virus infected over a million computers worldwide, including at NASA

US law enforcement officers arrested Kuzmin during his visit to California in 2010 and persuaded him to cooperate. He helped prosecutors nab the other two men, who were arrested in 2012 in their home countries and are awaiting extradition.

Kuzmin has been accused of developing the virus. Calovskis has been accused of modifying the virus, so that it could mimic a bank website, prompting account holders to divulge personal information. Paunescu has been accused of hosting command and control servers, thus shielding them from detection.