Kim dot com
Photo: MICHAEL BRADLEY/ AFP
Two other former colleagues of the German internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom are not being extradited to the USA by New Zealand.
The two former co-operators of Megaupload, Mathias Ortmann and Bram van der Kolk, announced on Tuesday that they had reached an agreement with the New Zealand government and the USA to be tried for similar offenses in New Zealand.
Now only Kim Dotcom is threatened with extradition.
The US authorities accuse Dotcom and three other operators of massive copyright infringement, fraud and money laundering.
Dotcom founded the Megaupload platform in 2005, on which Internet users could upload and download files free of charge.
According to the US Department of Justice, the site expressly served as a file sharing platform for copyrighted content such as films, TV series and other files.
In January 2012, the US authorities switched off Megaupload, New Zealand police officers searched Dotcom's property in Auckland at the request of the US, confiscated works of art and several luxury cars and arrested Dotcom.
Since then, he and his colleagues have resisted extradition to the United States.
The extradition proceedings against former marketing manager Finn Batato had already been discontinued last year due to a life-threatening illness.
$175 million profit
Ortmann and van der Kolk said on Tuesday that the case had "taken a heavy toll on their lives."
None of them want to leave New Zealand, where they have their permanent residence.
The New Zealand prosecutor confirmed the agreement.
Accordingly, the indictment filed on Tuesday morning before the district court in Auckland corresponds to the allegations of the USA.
The FBI has classified Megaupload's activities as the largest copyright infringement case in US history.
The platform made a profit of $175 million and the damage is said to be at least $500 million.
Dotcom and its co-defendants have consistently denied the allegations.
Dotcom accuses the US authorities of waging a vendetta against him on behalf of the influential film industry in Hollywood.
If extradited and convicted in the United States, he faces up to 20 years in prison.
The now 48-year-old entrepreneur said on Tuesday that he would "continue to fight".
pbe/AFP