14 DAY TRIAL // Kim Dotcom is at the receiving end of a rather confusing court decision after judges decided that there was no crime for copyright in New Zeeland law that could justify extradition to the United States, but that he could still be sent to the U.S. to face allegations of fraud.
It seems that Kim Dotcom has been battling the United States in court since forever. Over the years, there have been numerous decisions handed out by the courts, going both in his favor and against him.
Now, the New Zealand High Court has ruled that Dotcom, founder of Megaupload, cannot be extradited to the United States on the grounds of the alleged copyright infringement as he was originally charged. Nonetheless, he may still face an American court on other charges. Dotcom has already announced an appeal would be filed regarding the latter part of the decision.
The long legal battle
This whole case started as Megaupload, Dotcom's file-sharing, site was accused of facilitating the spread of copyrighted content. The Megaupload case started back in 2012 when Dotcom was arrested following a raid on his New Zealand residence, a raid which was done on behalf of US prosecutors. Accusers claim that copyright holders suffered more than half a billion in damages due to Dotcom's service. That seems to be the base of it being possible to bring new charges to Dotcom regarding conspiracy to defraud.
His lawyer in New Zealand said that the case might be appealed to two more courts, including the Supreme Court.
"The last hurdle to what we say is the correct outcome - no extradition - will now need to be determined by the Court of Appeal. We remain confident that this last point, which would prevent extradition in this complex and unprecedented legal case, will be resolved in Kim's favour in a manner consistent with Parliament’s intent, international law and, importantly one might think, the United States' own law," reads the press release issued by the Dotcom legal team.
Judgement: I'm no longer getting extradited for Copyright. We won on that. I'm now getting extradited for a law that doesn't even apply. — Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) February 20, 2017