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Comment by downandout | Hacker News Reader

He can still appeal the case to a higher court in New Zealand, and may have a chance there. Copyright infringement isn't extraditable from New Zealand, because it's not a crime there. To counteract this problem, the US also charged him with conspiracy to commit a crime and money laundering, which are extraditable offenses in New Zealand. However, those charges are wholly dependent upon the main copyright infringement charge. The conspiracy charge is based upon conspiring with others to commit copyright infringement, and the money laundering charge is based upon his use of the proceeds of an alleged crime - namely, copyright infringement.

Based upon this, a higher court may very well reverse the lower court's decision. Kim Dotcom isn't going anywhere until he has exhausted all of his extradition appeals.

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Even if copyright infringement is not extraditable in New Zealand, it is still a crime, right? So how would it in any way invalidate the extraditability of money laundering "based" on some crime, if money laundering in itself is extraditable even without any other crime having committed by the accused?

Money laundering would be extraditable even stand-alone, right?

Yes, of course appeals will always be used to delay extraditions and anything. This is not really to the credit of justice systems, though it may sometimes lead to outcomes that are "right".

(I just recently got decision for my friend's mother's residence permit where our local government tired out after a repeated appeal process of seven years, after two full rounds of all court stages plus the ECHR. We lost in the courts at all stages but the authorities just realised that this is never going to end so it's better to give in.)

IANAL, but, as far as I know, there is no concept of stand-alone money laundering. You can only launder money that you came upon through crime. So, if there was no crime to begin with, it makes no sense to accuse him of money-laundering.

Unsure about NZ, but at least in the US, "structuring" your payments in a way that would avoid AML checks is a crime by itself, regardless of whether you obtained the money legally.

I'm still puzzled how he can be extradited if he is not US citizen and did not commit any crime on US soil.

I'm left scratching my head at this as well. I'm assuming (without reading into it) they are arguing that it was U.S. copy righted material that was taken, and distributed on U.S. soil (i.e. the internet).

Julian Assange faces similar offense[1], though in this case they are claiming national security as opposed to copy right infringement.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange

One word: overreach

Imperialism. What the US says goes.

It happens often. See "Mr. Nice" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr_Nice_(book) - he was a pot smuggler who had never entered the states and was not a UK citizen but the DEA managed to extradite him anyway.

Hew Raymond Griffiths, had never been to the US. He was extradited from Australia to the US for something that isn't considered a crime in Australia.

The irony is this part: "Griffiths finally returned to Australia on 2 March 2008, after 5 weeks as an illegal alien in the US immigration detention system following his release from prison on 26 January 2008 (Australia Day). A condition of his repatriation to Australia was that he never again re-enter the United States of America, a country he had never visited before being extradited to it."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hew_Raymond_Griffiths

What in the actual fuck? He was detained for immigration authorities because 'prisoner for a crime that isn't a crime in my jurisdiction' isn't a legal immigration status?

Thanks for educating me about this.

> Kim Dotcom isn't going anywhere until he has exhausted all of his extradition appeals

A NZ newspaper just published an article about the likely process at http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objecti...

1. Appeal to the NZ High Court on whether the law was applied correctly

2. Appeal to NZ Court of Appeals

3. Appeal to NZ Supreme Court

4. NZ Justice Minister decides whether there's any reasons in the Extradition Act that meant extradition should not be ordered, including humanitarian and political persecution reasons.

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