Kim Dotcom announces police settlement over ‘military-style’ raid
Internet entrepreneur and Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom has reached a settlement with police in New Zealand over a raid on his home in 2012.
A statement from his lawyers dated Friday, November 3, said that Kim and his wife Mona had resolved their lawsuit “in which the Dotcoms sought a remedy for their claim about the unreasonable use of force in the military-style raid of their family home”.
In January 2012, US officials shut down file-sharing site Megaupload and arrested its owners, including Dotcom, based on charges including copyright infringement. They said the site earned $175 million in seven years.
The US is currently trying to extradite Dotcom from New Zealand, where he was arrested.
Friday’s statement said that Mona, who was seven months pregnant at the time, was “traumatised” and that “neither the Dotcoms nor their guests were allowed to talk to each other or their lawyers for an unreasonable period”.
“Today, Mona and I are glad to reach a confidential settlement of our case against the New Zealand police,” Kim was quoted as saying in the statement.
“We were shocked at the uncharacteristic handling of my arrest for a non-violent internet copyright infringement charge brought by the US, which is not even a crime in New Zealand,” he added.
Reports at the time of the raid suggested it was conducted with two military helicopters. It happened on the same day as a US criminal complaint was unsealed against Dotcom and his colleagues.
Megaupload was an online file-sharing website founded by Dotcom in 2005 and was based in Hong Kong.
The site was closed in 2012 by the US Department of Justice and approximately $42 million of assets were seized by authorities.
Dotcom denies any wrongdoing and had questioned the legality of the raid.
WIPR reported that New Zealand’s High Court cleared the way for Dotcom’s extradition in a decision released on February 20.
But the High Court added that copyright infringement via digital communication of protected works to the public is not a criminal offence in New Zealand.
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