Kim Dotcom Takes The Stand: New Information On This Year’s Raid Against Megaupload

August 7, 2012 by
Filed under: Announcements & Events, Legal P2P News & Issues 

Today Kim Dotcom took the witness stand and claimed that he was physically abused (punched and kicked) by police authorities during the raid.

A hearing at the High Court of Auckland took place today and is scheduled to go on for three days. Why? Not only Kim is trying to get some of his assets back – those which are not relevant to the case – but his lawyers also follow a court ruling which stated that the search warrants used to raid his mansion were invalid.

At the witness stand Dotcom told the court that while the raid was just about to commence he was installing a Windows update when he heard a helicopter outside. At first he believed that some guests arrived to celebrate his birthday, but events that day proved to be something else entirely.

“I heard loud banging noises. I was just scared and worried. I thought I’d better wait for them to come to me rather than popping out and scaring someone who might shoot me,” Kim said.

“If someone had knocked on our door and said we have a document here with charges I would have let them in because I had no expectation that anything like this could ever occur.”

Furthermore, it looks like the police was following him for some time that very day and could have arrested him after he left the music studio in the morning.

“If I was the police, I would have done it that way.”

Getting back to the action, Dotcom said that while in the “red room” he indeed had access to a firearm, but that the first two rounds were rubber bullets. However, when the police went inside, his stance was one of “surrender”, but that didn’t stop the authorities to use force.

“And then they were all over me. I had a punch to the face, boots kicking me down to the floor, a knee to the ribs. One man was standing on my hand,” he said, also adding that his wrists were tied with a cable.
“It was really tight. I was screaming,” he said.

Police’s brutality was completely unnecessary, he said.

“If someone had knocked on the door and said they had a document with charges I would have let them in.”

The three-day long hearing will also take statements from New Zealand’s Special Tactics Group – the elite anti-terror force that conducted the raid. Also, CCTV footage captured at his mansion is to be scrutinized. However, according to Stuff.nz New Zealand’s prosecutors are trying to conceal the footage, but a transcript of police-recorded audio may be allowed.

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