Which NZ laws enable dotcom's property to be confiscated?

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jonb

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#580063 11-Feb-2012 08:15

I suspect the cops and police prosecutors here get quite excited and star-struck that they're working with the FBI and high up people in the US, and do things they otherwise wouldn't do in order to impress them. The whole dawn raid thing proves that. Same thing happens in the UK.

I've certainly never heard of anybody having this sort of thing done to them before, after only a couple of weeks in remand - the hanover mansion anyone, Eric Watson's Waiheke island pad and myriad NZ business interests including the Warriors? The blue chip directors on trial still have all there assets as far as I know. All the gang members known to police seem to not have any problems with assets being frozen whilst on bail.

It looks like the guy will get life (as in your whole life!) imprisonment in the US for this, especially with the addition of the conspiracy and laundering charges (see the story in the Herald: US 'throwing everything' at Dot Com) Is there any provision in the extradition treaty for this kind of sentence difference between the two countries? If it was here he'd get a couple of year's home detention for criminal fraud (not that copyright infringement is even a criminal offence in NZ). After extradition he'll be rotting away inside a federal supermax prison for the rest of his life.

It makes me very uneasy.

gzt

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#580087 11-Feb-2012 09:51

An NZ Herald article on MU/Dotcom written by a lawyer: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/news/article.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10784190

"It is unclear to me why Kim Dotcom chose to set up operations in New Zealand, being a country with a formal extradition treaty with the US"

First of all, it is unlikely he thought he was breaking US law in the first place.

I have heard a lot in the NZ media about the possibility of his planning to flee to the Germany because Germany does not have an extradition treaty with the USA.

Well, Germany does have a formal extradition treaty with the USA.

-Journalism fail-

John2010

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#580155 11-Feb-2012 12:59

I am no lawyer but I suspect the Herald writer's claim that in his "This is defined as an offence that involves conduct that would be regarded as criminal had it occurred in New Zealand and would have carried a similar penalty" the claim of "a similar penalty" is also in error.

As far as I know the only provisions regarding comparison of penalty are nothing to do with being similar but rather along the lines that the maximum penalty in both NZ's and the requesting country's law just has to be in excess of 12 months imprisonment, and in the case of the death penalty being a punishment for the crime in the country requesting the surrender the request may be refused.

alienwithin

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#580316 11-Feb-2012 22:47

actually jonb, new zealand police work with the fbi on more cases than the public are aware of. it's funny people claim innocent until proven guilty, yet they are so anti police they want to believe that a former criminal who committed one of the worst cases of fraud in Germany is now innocent and our police are doing the corrupt work of the americans. the material that the US has provided, including the indictment which is in the public arena is very damning, but then again, the word american has most of your anti americans dreaming that it is fake evidence anyway.

Batman

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#580326 11-Feb-2012 23:37

my lawyer vs your lawyer isn't it ...

obama-FBI vs puny resident ...

michael jackson vs anyone else ...

strauss-kahn vs cleaner ...

Kyanar

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#580686 13-Feb-2012 09:50

NonprayingMantis: In the case of DotCom, his assets being frozen and website taken down means all the data on the servers is going to be deleted.? Do the police have an obligation to keep property in the same condition it was found, or is it ok for them to allow this data to be deleted before it can be determined if it was illegal or not?

?

(an analogous situation might be if the police confiscated a bunch of milk they thought was stolen. Would they be required to keep it refrigerated? What if the it was not determined to be ok for several months, would they be required to replace the milk?)

I assume that's not something the NZ Police care about. The servers were confiscated by the FBI, outside of our jurisdiction. Presumably the NZ Police would consider it the FBI's problem to protect that, especially since it's their case. Any attempt to sue someone over this would likely have to be against the FBI (presuming the Supreme Court grants permission to sue the FBI, since my understanding is that you can't sue a government department in the US for even negligence in the course of doing its job unless the Supreme Court grants leave or the department waives immunity) since the NZ Police are just acting as agents.

vexxxboy

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#580688 13-Feb-2012 09:57

i feel sorry for all the staff who worked there , they have lost all there personal belongings that were on the property , good luck trying to get them back

Common sense is not as common as you think.

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