Dotcom's lawyer calls for extradition case to be dismissed after court rule

[Len]

Dotcom's lawyer calls for extradition case to be dismissed after court rules New Zealand's GCSB illegally spied on Megaupload

Kim Dotcom claims the GCSB wasn't the only spy agency out to get him

Ira Rothken, Kim Dotcom's lawyer, has called for the extradition case against Dotcom to be dropped after the High Court in New Zealand ruled that he had been spied on illegally by the GCSB, New Zealand's spy agency. 

Dotcom, not surprisingly, is delighted with the decision.

In one of his earliest reactions to the Court's ruling he said that other intelligence agencies might also be involved in the underhand surveillance and may be guilty of lying in court.

"MORE illegal spying exposed in High Court admission by New Zealand govt," he wrote in a tweet in response to the verdict. "NSA involved and perjury exposed!"

Others show how determined he is to get to the bottom on the spying: "Next step: Let's find out exactly what the NSA involvement was in all that illegal spying and deep state abuse of power against my family," he said during what might be called a Tweet storm.
 

Court documents released by Megaupload show the GCSB admitting to its wrong doings but declining to dwell on the details.

"In a decision dated December last year, but only made publicly available for the first time this week, the High Court has entered two judgments against the GCSB for unlawful spying on Mathias Ortmann and Bram van der Kolk, who are defendants in the extradition proceedings that also involve Kim Dotcom and Firm Batato.

"The judgments both include a detailed declaratory statement of the circumstances in which the unlawful spying took place," it says.

It continues: "The circumstances of the interceptions of Messrs Ortmann and Batato's communications (and the technical details regarding the other plaintiffs' interceptions) are top secret, and it has not proved possible to plead to the allegations the plaintiffs have made without revealing information which would jeopardise the national security of New Zealand."

The finding of the court could be significant for Dotcom as he fights his case against extradition to the US. 

Even the raid on his home has been ruled illegal already - although that judgement was later overruled by New Zealand's Supreme Court.

Nevertheless, Dotcom is still arguing that the methods used during the raid and shutdown of Megaupload were against the law, and that other charges, which include money laundering and fraud, are therefore also nonsense.

Earlier this year Rothken told CNBC that he expected that all charges would eventually be dropped. 

"Our view is that the charges are like a house of cards," he said.

"Once you get rid of criminal copyright infringement, everything falls. There is no money laundering if you have a non-copyright infringing cloud storage site."

And in a statement to V3 today, Dotcom's lawyer added: "There are a lot of issues of first impression in this case. We have a trail of government abuse engrained in court judgments from illegal spying to the illegal removal of data by the US offshore without permission."

He continued: "We believe that the US and New Zealand aided and abetted each other in the illegal conduct against Kim Dotcom and the others.

"This case and extradition should now be dismissed in the interests of justice.

"The government's illegal conduct has reached such an extreme level that we believe that no court should entertain an extradition proceeding so tainted with state sponsored abuse and violations of basic human rights."