MOSCOW, January 27 - RAPSI. Russian programmer Andrei Sabelnikov, whom Microsoft accused on Tuesday of creating harmful software for the Kelihos botnet, wrote that the charges against him are baseless in an open letter published on his blog on Friday.

The botnet was eliminated last September, Microsoft reported.

Thanks to the efforts of Microsoft employees, Kaspersky Lab and Kyrus Inc., Kelihos' activity was eliminated last year. The subsequent investigation revealed that the botnet infected 41,000 computers that were sending spam, distributing harmful software and child pornography, and stealing personal data.

Microsoft maintains that Sabelnikov is responsible for the botnet's activity and submitted a lawsuit against him to a U.S. court.

"I did not commit the crime, I never took part in managing botnets or other similar programs, and I did not gain any profit from such activities," he wrote on his personal on Livejournal.com.

Sabelnikov wrote that he suspended an upcoming business trip after he found out about his prosecution.

He added that he is ready to testify and answer Microsoft's questions in accordance with Russian legislation.

Sabelnmikov works at the Teknavo consulting company. He used to work at the Agnitum antivirus company, developing software to protect Returnil data.

Sabelnikov promised to submit a letter of protest to Microsoft.

RIA Novosti has yet to obtain comments from Microsoft.

Sabelnikov is the second defendant in the case that Microsoft initiated last October after the botnet network was shut down. The first defendant was Dominique Alexander Piatti, the owner of the dotFREE Group SRO domain registration firm. According to Microsoft, his company delegated Sabelnikov 3,200 territorial subdomains in the "cz.cc" zone, which was used by the criminal to manage the botnet network and reap profits from the software.