The raid on the home of Megaupload boss, Kim Dotcom, known as ‘Dr Dotcom’ was “illegal”, a Kiwi Judge ruled yesterday. The High Court Justice Helen Winkelmann ruled the warrants used to raid Kim Dotcom’s New Zealand mansion in January last were invalid as they failed to correspond to any particular offense and were “lacking adequate specificity as to the offence”. “The search and seizure was therefore illegal,” the Judge declared. Justice Winkelmann also rebuked the New Zealand police force in the execution of the warrants used to raid the Dotcom Mansion and seize items “clear that the police, in executing the warrants, have exceeded what they could lawfully be authorised to do”. NZ police were working on instructions from the FBI, who are after Dotcom on charges of Internet piracy, copyright infringements and money laundering, in what US authorities terms as a ‘”mega -conspiracy.” The FBI believes the Internet millionaire used his file sharing site Megaupload to pirate copyright material, thus damaging the multi billion dollar movie and music industries. This ruling by the NZ High Court relating to their adopted son (German born Dotcom is a NZ resident) could also put a spanner in the works for the FBI case against Dr Dotcom and could protect him from extradition to the US. |
||
Dr Dotcom said he was “very happy” with yesterday’s outcome and is studying the 56 page judgement. He also was noticeably quiet on his rather colourful Twitter account, however. Dotcom’s alleged partners also facing extradition to the US include Megaupload co-founder Mathias Ortmann, Finn Batato, chief technical officer and Bram van der Kolk. And Dr Dotcom has also been defended by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak this week, who branded the raid on his home as “ridiculous” adding the “US government is on thin ground.”
|
