What has happened to Kim Dotcom should be a national shame.
By Martyn Bradbury
24 April 2026
Fourteen years on, the case against Kim Dotcom remains one of the most controversial legal and political sagas in modern New Zealand history—raising questions about sovereignty, illegal spying, and how far governments will go to appease powerful allies.
Kim Dotcom extradition: Lawyer attacks ‘grossly disproportionate’ treatment over Megaupload
The lawyer for Kim Dotcom says the internet mogul’s treatment, compared with that of his co-accused, was grossly disproportionate and would “shock the consciousness of properly informed New Zealanders."
It has been 14 years since Crown Law began working on the Megaupload extradition case, ahead of the FBI’s global operation to shut down the file-sharing site in raids in seven countries in January 2012.
Since then, there’s been plenty of legal twists and turns, which Dotcom’s lawyer, Ron Mansfield, KC, acknowledged in his opening comments to the Court of Appeal this morning.
“The Dotcom extradition proceedings can be seen to keep on giving to New Zealand jurisprudence.
Fourteen years of legal limbo.
The deplorable manner in which the key government set Dotcom up by giving him residency only to serve him up to the Americans as a blood bounty using evidence obtained through illegal spying will forever be a blot on our nation's reputation.
It was a shameful quisling cowardice to America and amounted to entrapment.
When New Zealand bent the knee to America.
After corporate Hollywood threatened to pull donations from the Democrats if they didn’t embark upon some symbolic gesture on internet piracy, Obama announced Megaupload as public enemy number 1, and the case against Dotcom was manufactured.
NZ became a willing participant in this treachery and granted Kim permanent residency to set him up for the Americans using illegal means.
The whole shabby, dirty mess is a legal disgrace and one that has come at terrible cost to Dotcom.
For one shining moment there we threatened the elites.
But the elites won.
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/wha....t-has-happened-to-ki
