14 DAY TRIAL // Kim Dotcom scored a win in court in New Zealand after the judges decided that the local police must return whatever clones they have of devices belonging to the Mega mogul and that were seized during the 2012 raid.
The court argued that Dotcom and his colleagues, namely van der Kolk, Finn Batato and Mathias Ortmann, who have been accused in the same case should have had access to the content as they prepare for their extradition hearings. To top things off, the court found that the seizure was unauthorized.
The ruling regards the clones of the electronic devices that were seized during the 2012 raid on Dotcom’s mansion, which was requested by US authorities who are looking to the Megaupload leader extradited. The list includes laptops, computers, portable hard drives, flash storage devices, and servers, reports the New Zealand Herald.
Judges have been going to and fro on the topic of allowing Dotcom access to the files. During a recent hearing, the prosecution tried to explain that the data hadn’t been handed over yet because some of it was encrypted, making it impossible for the police to verify and investigate the content.
The clones must be free from encrypted material, the judge said, and the return of the cloned devices can be done in tranches, if that will speed up the process. The return of these will have to be done “as soon as reasonably process.”
Dotcom gets access to his files two and a half years after the raid
“1000 days after the raid: A court victory over seized property. Finally we get ‘clones’ of our data,” Dotcom wrote on his Twitter page, expressing his joy at the news that he’ll finally be able to build up his defense properly.
The decision taken by the Court of Appeal upholds a High Court declaration that the decision to allow police to give cloned copies of information from Dotcom’s devices to the FBI. The judges considered the move to be unauthorized by the Solicitor General and overall unlawful, which earned the law enforcement agencies a harsh criticism at the time.
Kim Dotcom’s extradition case has been pushed back to 2015, on February 16, to be specific. The delay is not exactly a surprise, since postponements have actually happened quite a bit in the past few years since the story started in the first place. First, it was supposed to take place in March 2014, but was moved back to November 2013, and then to April 2014. While a new one was supposed to take place soon, it, too, has been postponed.