It seems that the saga surrounding Kim Dotcom and the United States has just gotten very interesting as a New Zealand judge has just declared that the Megaupload founder and his co-defendants are eligible to be extradited to the United States to face criminal chargers over alleged massive copyright infringement on the now-shuttered file hosting site.
Kim Dotcom’s legal woes with the United States began in 2012 when the New Zealand police- acting on the orders of American prosecuters- showed up at his mansion, seizing 18 luxury vehicles, 11 million New Zealand dollars in cash from bank accounts, and 150TB of data from Dotcom’s digital devices in the process. On the other side of the Pacific Ocean, American prosecutors began places charges on Dotcom, including criminal charges of copywrite infringement, racketeering, wire fraud, and money laundering. Piling on to Dotcom’s troubles is the fact that the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and US prosecutors have since tacked on a civil case and a civil forfeiture case respectively.
The most interesting part of this judge order happens to be a legal one however. According to the extradition treaty between the US and New Zealand, the only extraditable offenses that Dotcom has committed are racketeering and money laundering. Complicating matters still is that Dotcom is a German and Finnish dual citizen that is currently living in New Zealand as a permanent resident. Should Dotcom decide to become a naturalized New Zealander, of which he qualifies for a few weeks ago, New Zealand has no obligation to the US to extradite Dotcom as the extradition treaty between them states that neither coutry are “bound to deliver up its own citizens”.
The @KimDotcom team looks forward to having the US request for extradition reviewed in the High Court.We have no other comments at this time
— Ira Rothken (@rothken) December 23, 2015
But before all of this comes to a head though, Dotcom and his lawyers will be bringing the judgement to the High Court for review.
Source : Ars Technica
