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Wellington (dpa) – In the fight against his extradition to the United States
the German Internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom, who lives in New Zealand, suffered a legal defeat.
The Wellington Supreme Court of Appeal confirmed Thursday (local time) two judgments declaring that his extradition and the three colleagues would be legal on the basis of the evidence.
If the 44-year-old man is tried in the United States, he faces several decades of crimes. But Dotcom still does not want to give up and bring it to the next instance. "My team of lawyers is confident that the Supreme Court will hear the complaint because important legal issues are at stake," he said.
Born under the name Kim Schmitz in Kiel and living in in New Zealand since 2010, Dotcom has been fighting extradition since 2012. US prosecutors accuse the founder of the Internet data platform Megaupload and its employees, among other things, large scale copyright fraud and money laundering. In February 2017, a New Zealand court ruled that Dotcom could be extradited to the United States – not for copyright infringement but for fraud.
"We have now heard three different legal interpretations of three different courts," criticized Dotcom's attorney, Ira Rothken. "One of them was convinced that there was no violation of the copyright." Rothken was therefore still convinced to win the case at the end.
With Megaupload, Dotcom and its partners raised millions of dollars in advertising subscriptions and customers. According to court records, Megaupload ranks tenth as one of the most popular websites – accounting for four percent of all Internet traffic.
If the Supreme Court does not accept the complaint, it is up to the Minister of Justice of New Zealand to decide on the future of Dotcom.
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