On Thursday, a New Zealand court decided to reschedule the extradition hearing sought by the US for Kim Dotcom. The hearing is now set to take place in August 2013, after being postponed once already.
Dotcom, who was arrested in his New Zealand home in January for alleged copyright fraud, was supposed to appear in court in August 2012 for the extradition hearing. Instead, the hearing was put off until March 2013 due to issues concerning the disclosure of evidence. At the time, the New Zealand High Court ruled that the FBI had to provide Kim Dotcom’s lawyers with more of the evidence they had collected against him before he could stand trial for extradition.
A spokeswoman for one of Dotcom’s lawyers confirmed the change but did not provide a reason for it, according to the AFP.
Dotcom is currently living free on bail in New Zealand, and although he was originally barred from using the Internet, the Web mogul has since launched a new site that functions as a heavily encrypted service similar to Megaupload. That leniency somewhat reflects the momentum of the case against Dotcom: in September, New Zealand authorities found that the country’s Security Bureau had illegally spied on him, putting another roadblock up in the effort to convict Kim Dotcom for piracy.
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