Dotcom cohorts suffer

Paraded in front of media; left on a wet lawn in underpants; separated from a loved one; forced to delay having children – life for Mathias Ortman and Bram van der Kolk since their arrest on piracy charges alongside Kim Dotcom has been a living nightmare, their lawyer told the High Court in Auckland yesterday.

In an opening address, the pair’s lawyer, Grant Illingworth, painted a picture of lives torn apart by the raid on the former Megaupload executives, years in limbo, and obstruction by United States authorities.

The hearing is an appeal of last year’s decision by District Court Judge Nevin Dawson, who found that Kim Dotcom and his codefendants Ortman, van der Kolk and Finn Batato could, at long last, be extradited to the US to face charges of internet piracy.

It is now 41⁄ years since Dotcom was arrested in an FBI-backed armed raid on his Helensville mansion. The US wants him to stand trial on charges that his Megaupload site was a piracy hub that hugely enriched him while facilitating the illegal downloading of copyright material worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

After appealing to the court’s sympathy, Illingworth moved to the heart of the matter – which was his claim that last year’s District Court hearing was unfair because the US blocked the defendants’ attempts to hire the American internet experts they needed to mount a full defence. He said he would also show that the District Court hearing had not been a ‘‘meaningful judicial assessment’’.

Though the Megaupload case has always focused on Kim Dotcom, the flamboyant German was not present for the start of the case – though that did not stop him tweeting about it.

In recent days Dotcom has been vigorously lobbying to have the hearing live-streamed.

Justice Gilbert said the request for live-streaming had come very late, so a decision would be delayed until media organisations had time to make submissions on the matter. The hearing is expected to continue for six weeks or more.