New Zealand court rules against Kim Dotcom in search warrant case

On Wednesday in New Zealand, a Court of Appeal ruled that the warrants used to seize property belonging to Megaupload founder and CEO Kim Dotcom were legal. The court’s decision reversed a 2012 High Court decision in which a chief judge ruled that the warrants were too vague and did not define the parameters of the search and seizure sufficiently. Since the raid on his New Zealand property in January 2012, Kim Dotcom has been waging legal battles with New Zealand and United States authorities.

A court in New Zealand has ruled that warrants used to search the homes of Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom and his colleague Bram van der Kolk were valid, but objected to the removal to the U.S. by the Federal Bureau of Investigation of copies of the electronic items seized. The Court of Appeal of New Zealand ruled Wednesday that the warrants were defective in some respects, but the defects were not sufficient to treat them as “nullities.” A ruling against the validity of the warrants would have made it harder for the U.S. bid to extradite Dotcom, van der Kolk and two other colleagues to face charges in the U.S., as the evidence collected could have been called into question.