Megaupload lawyers apply for mistrial

Lawyers for Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom and his associates have applied for the US case against the group to be thrown out after a US judge publicly doubted the legality of the process.

Counsel for group, which has had tens of millions of dollars of assets recently unfrozen, said papers served on the group were out of United States’ jurisdiction.

The company is based in Hong Kong and no papers have ever been formally served, according to Dotcom’s lawyer Ira Rothken.

The group's case also relied on recent comments by US Judge Liam O’Grady, who said, “I frankly don’t know if we are ever going to have a trial in this matter,” after he was told that Megaupload had never been formally served with papers by the United States.

"The law here in the United States is that you can't indict and then serve a company that does not have a presence in the United States," Rothken told Radio New Zealand.

He said the case against Megaupload and its executives should be dismissed.

"This case was flawed from the start, once this case gets dismissed it cannot be fixed," Rothken said.

Megaupload's assets were seized and its executives in New Zealand and Holland arrested in January on warrants issued by the FBI alleging money laundering, internet piracy, and illegal file sharing.

Kim Dotcom and his Megaupload associates are fighting a legal war on two fronts with court skirmishes in New Zealand and the United States to avoid extradition on copyright infringement charges and to get their confiscated assets back.

A New Zealand District Court judge this week granted Dotcom's legal team access to some of the evidence relied upon by the US lawyers to indict the Megaupload tycoon and his associates, while unfreezing local assets.

Dotcom's US lawyers have filed for more of the confiscated funds to be returned in order to mount a full and fair defence against the allegations.

With Reuters.

Scribed: Motion to dismiss indictment against Megaupload

Scribd: Motion to release confiscated funds.