Tuesday 30 Jul 2013 5:35p.m.
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An email exchange between
two co-accused in the MegaUpload case and which the United States is
using as evidence against them is a joke taken out of context, their
lawyer says.
Guyon Foley, who is representing Kim Dotcom's
co-accused Finn Batato, Mathias Ortmann and Bram van der Kolk, said that
is one of the reasons he and Dotcom’s lawyer are asking for more
information ahead of next year's extradition hearing.
"The United States, in terms of their application
for surrender, is relying on a joke. We wish to demonstrate that," Mr
Foley said.
A hearing in the Supreme Court
today heard arguments for and against handing over more documents to
the four who are accused of copyright infringement and racketeering in
relation to the MegaUpload website.
Mr Foley said while his clients had access to some
of those emails which were in a cloud storage system, more information
would allow his clients to give context to the allegations.
"There are a very large number of emails – about 5
million - that sounds like a lot to us, but I imagine you can put them
on a small hard drive the size of a glass of water. That wouldn’t take
long."
His clients and Dotcom wanted to "essentially to be able to prove to the extradition court that there is no case".
Meanwhile Solicitor-General Michael Heron QC said if disclosure was granted it would not be the end of the matter.
"Of course not. There will be arguments about what's disclosed, how much, what's been missed out.
"How will the court determine what's relevant? It will have to see it and we'll end up with everything being disclosed."
Mr
Heron said the courts do not have the power to order documents to be
handed over to the accused because it is contrary to New Zealand’s
extradition treaty with the United States.
Mr
Heron said there were no cases in common law where an order for
disclosure was upheld. "Nowhere in the treaty does it contemplate the
court ordering disclosure. There is no specific reference to that."
Earlier
District Court Judge David Henry made an order for disclosure which
required the United States government to disclose evidence it had
against Dotcom and his co-accused.
The Supreme
Court appeal was made earlier this year after the Court of Appeal
dismissed Judge Harvey’s order and decided full disclosure was not
needed.
Under the Extradition Act the United
States must satisfy the District Court that Dotcom and his co-accused
have a case to answer.
The Justices reserved their decision.
3 News
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