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Due to restrictions, the Live Kim Dotcom Extradition Appeal Hearing can't be shown within WJN. Following a momentous raid on Megaupload in 2012, the U.S. authorities have expended hundreds of hours of legal resources and left no stone unturned in their efforts to have Kim Dotcom and colleagues Mathias Ortmann, Finn Batato and Bram van der Kolk extradited from New Zealand to face justice in the United States. In a District court hearing that was scheduled to last just four weeks but in the event lasted more than two and half months, Kim Dotcom, together with his former Megaupload colleagues, were found eligible for extradition to the United States last December. They are now appealing that decision at the High Court in Auckland. During the 10-week extradition hearing last year, lawyers for the US argued Dotcom and his associates had earned US$175 million ($242m) by running a website funded largely by revenue from publishing copyright-infringing files. They said the site had paid people to illegally upload copyright-infringing files and then charged others to watch them. But Dotcom's lawyer, Ron Mansfield, said the website was protected by a 'dual - use' defence - where a company couldn't be responsible for the illegal use of products with other legitimate purposes. 'The appeal route is High Court, Court of Appeal, Supreme Court. If I lose, (it goes to a) decision by Minister of Justice, then to a High Court judicial review of the Minister's decision. (Then it's the) end of the road,' said Dotcom. If extradited and found guilty in the US, the men could face decades in jail. |
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