About three months ago, Polish law enforcement authorities arrested Artyom Vaulin, the alleged operator of KickassTorrents, one of the most popular torrent trackers in the world. The 30-year-old Ukrainian was arrested on behalf of American authorities and has been held in a local prison ever since. The United States officially requested his extradition 2 weeks ago. A grand jury indictment says that Artyom and his two colleagues were behind the pirate website.
Now Polish authorities have extended Vaulin’s arrest, while his defense team is preparing to fight the extradition request. His US lawyer claims that operating a torrent website cannot be a criminal offense, because it is nothing different from operating Google.
Vaulin’s US lawyer, as well as his wife and 4-year-old son all currently reside in Poland, since the arrest was recently extended to November 19. He is going to challenge extradition through his Polish counsel in late October. Vaulin’s defense team is going to fight the extradition by arguing that operating a torrent search engine is not a criminal offense in Poland, where he is detained, or Ukraine, where he lives and works. Moreover, operating a search engine like KickassTorrents is not a crime in the US either, otherwise other search engines like Google might be in trouble as well. By the way, isoHunt.com argued the same in their civil case against the entertainment industry, but this position didn’t help it.
Vaulin’s US defense team has been trying to set up a meeting with their client for a few weeks, but so far with no result, as he is only allowed to work with his Polish lawyers for now.
Thanks to TorrentFreak for providing the source of the article.
Posted by:
Date: Tuesday, October 4th, 2016
Now Polish authorities have extended Vaulin’s arrest, while his defense team is preparing to fight the extradition request. His US lawyer claims that operating a torrent website cannot be a criminal offense, because it is nothing different from operating Google.
Vaulin’s US lawyer, as well as his wife and 4-year-old son all currently reside in Poland, since the arrest was recently extended to November 19. He is going to challenge extradition through his Polish counsel in late October. Vaulin’s defense team is going to fight the extradition by arguing that operating a torrent search engine is not a criminal offense in Poland, where he is detained, or Ukraine, where he lives and works. Moreover, operating a search engine like KickassTorrents is not a crime in the US either, otherwise other search engines like Google might be in trouble as well. By the way, isoHunt.com argued the same in their civil case against the entertainment industry, but this position didn’t help it.
Vaulin’s US defense team has been trying to set up a meeting with their client for a few weeks, but so far with no result, as he is only allowed to work with his Polish lawyers for now.
Thanks to TorrentFreak for providing the source of the article.
Posted by:
SaM
Date: Tuesday, October 4th, 2016
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