An Appeals Court has ruled the search warrants used to raid Kim Dotcom’s New Zealand mansion were legal. The decision is a setback in Dotcom’s battle against extradition to the US, where he is wanted for copyright charges in connection with MegaUpload.
This latest ruling by the Appeals Court has overturned a previous
decision by High Court Judge Helen Winkelmann, who deemed that
the search warrant issued in 2012 was not sufficiently specific
and illegal.
The new ruling argues that the search warrants were reasonable
and it was obvious, given Dotcom’s background, what they
pertained to.
“This view is reinforced by the fact that Mr. Dotcom was a
computer expert who would have understood without any difficulty
the references in the search warrant to his companies ... and the
description of the various categories of electronic items,”
the judges wrote in a 44-page ruling.
The court harked back to comments made by the internet tycoon’s
lawyer Paul Davison that Dotcom's “life and soul is on his
computer.”
The warrants were issued in 2012 after the US issued an
indictment against Dotcom for charges of copyright and
racketeering in connection with his file-sharing site MegaUpload.
The search warrants paved the way for an armed raid on Kim
Dotcom’s home in Auckland where officers seized millions of
dollars in cash and over 135 electronic items, including hard
drives and laptops.
Court ruling: The only party found to have committed piracy in the #Megaupload case: The FBI. Shipping my hard drives unlawfully to the US.
— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) February 19, 2014
While the Appeals Court ruled that the warrants were justified,
it said that there were “defects.” In this way the court
upheld a previous ruling, stating that prosecutors should not
have been authorized to send clones of Dotcom’s electronic
equipment
“The defects in these warrants were therefore not so radical
as to require them to be treated as nullities,” said the
ruling.
The court’s decision has dealt a significant blow to Dotcom’s
campaign against extradition to the US. His legal team told press
following the decision that they would appeal the ruling to the
Supreme Court.
The ruling may also have a knock-on effect on a separate case
where Dotcom is seeking damages from the New Zealand government
for the 2012 raid on his home.
Our @KimDotcom legal team is reviewing the rulings made by the Court of Appeal and will likely seek leave to appeal to the Supreme Court
— Ira Rothken (@rothken) February 19, 2014
US authorities maintain that the German-born founder of
MegaUploads cost Hollywood studios and other copyright holders
$500 million through revenues lost to his website. Dotcom insists
he is innocent and that MegaUploads was protected by the Digital
Millennium Copyright Act.
If convicted, Dotcom could face a jail sentence of up to 20
years.
Dotcom is currently free on bail in New Zealand pending his
extradition hearing which has been scheduled for this July.