Kim Dotcom, who is facing criminal charges relating to the defunct file-sharing website Megaupload, is to be extradited to the US, the New Zealand justice minister has said.
German-born Dotcom has New Zealand residency and has been fighting extradition to the US since 2012 following an FBI-ordered raid on his Auckland mansion.
The justice minister, Paul Goldsmith, had signed an extradition order for Dotcom, a spokesperson said on Thursday.
“I considered all of the information carefully, and have decided that Mr Dotcom should be surrendered to the US to face trial,” Goldsmith said in a statement.
In a post on X on Tuesday, Dotcom said: “The obedient US colony in the South Pacific just decided to extradite me for what users uploaded to Megaupload,” in what appears to be a reference to the extradition order.
It’s more like you had a storage unit, and let people do whatever they want with it, but it’s implied it’s used for illegal activity. And then you have full control to stop or prevent them from doing illegal activities, and choose not to.
“The mere fact of placing a copy on a shared directory in a computer where that copy can be accessed via a P2P service does not amount to distribution.”
I know that is a Canadian ruling and the US might have a different take. Just saying that is a realistic interpretation.