Dotcom’s appeal to delay US extradition hearing denied

Kim Dotcom has been fighting a non stop legal battle with the US for years now over Megaupload. Dotcom and a few other people involved with Megaupload were trying to appeal for more time to prepare for an upcoming US extradition hearing, but their request has been denied by the Court of Appeals.

The court claimed that it is confident in a fair hearing, which will now go ahead as planned next Monday. The US is after Dotcom, Mathias Ortmann, Bram van der Kolk and Finn Batato specifically, who all face charges of copyright infringement, money laundering, racketeering and conspiracy.

As TorrentFreak points out, the hearing has already been rescheduled ten times. Dotcom apparently wanted it to be rescheduled again in order to get funding for expert witnesses outside of New Zealand. In its judgement, the Court of Appeals said that if the US has deprived the defendants of American expertise, then they would need to properly argue that point during the extradition hearing.

“If Judge Dawson decides the actions of the United States have deprived the appellants of American expertise they need properly to defend the extradition application, then inevitably he will have to adjourn the extradition hearing. If the Judge decides such expertise is not needed, and holds the appellants are eligible for extradition, then the combination of judicial review and the right of appeal in the Extradition Act will provide the appellants with ample remedies should they not accept the outcome.”

The hearing is set to take place next Monday. As you would imagine, Kim Dotcom isn't too pleased about the appeal decision, branding the New Zealand court as a “US owned dancing bear”.

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KitGuru Says: It seems that Dotcom has exhausted all other options and now the extradition hearing will go ahead as planned. Now we'll just have to wait and see how it all plays out…

Via: TorrentFreak

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