Footage Of Kim Dotcom’s Nightmare Finally Released

August 9, 2012 by
Filed under: Announcements & Events, File-Sharing Programs, Networks & Services, Legal P2P News & Issues 

In our previous article we’ve explained how Kim Dotcom – founder of the former Megaupload website – took the witness stand, explaining about the events of that fatidic day when police authorities, in an overzealous manner, raided his mansion. Footage of what happened that day became available.

The overwhelming display of force – including the helicopters, the armed with semi-automatic weapons anti-terror force (Special Tactics Group), the FBI agents in the background – at Kim Dotcom’s mansion finally takes shape.

On January 20, 2012, at 6.46 am the raid began. As the helicopter was carrying members of the elite special tactics group, someone says on the radio:

“Ground units, Gates are open.”

After the aircraft circled the property, a police voice recorded conversation reveals:

“I need two guards working, one at the gate and one roaming,” it said.

“Main entry into the bedroom of the target, door’s closed, slammed and had a security lock on it, we’ve breached it. Moved through, he’s done a runner, can’t find him in either the studio or bedroom.”

What was Kim Dotcom doing at the time?

“I was on my bed, once the banging started, I pressed an alarm button that is situated right at my bed which was installed in case of an emergency. When I press that it automatically sends a signal to all security guards including Mr [Wayne] Tempero’s room including SMSs to everybody informing them there is an alert. Then I stood up from the bed and made my way to the red room,” he told the High Court of Auckland.

“I was sitting in front of that pillar in the room and heard loud banging noises, I was scared and worried.”

As the house was being secured, everyone at the scene was accounted for and contained.

“We have five Philippine females and three children,” the police radio said.

At 7.11 am police managed to have Dotcom constrained.

As for the equipment worn by the elite tactic group that day, here’s what a member of the STG told the court:

“A gun belt which had my secondary weapon, a police issued glock pistol on the right hand side, and additional magazines on the left and my primary weapon which is a Colt CommandoM4 556 weapon.”
“We wanted to match the threat level, in this case a low threat with our dress,” he said.

“We made that conscious decision not to wear full tactical kit.”

Dotcom’s lawyer asked the elite officer how was Dotcom handled. He stated:

“Yes there was deliberate force applied.”

“Primary objective: secure suspect as soon as possible to prevent destruction of evidence,” the elite officer told the court.

However, it would have been impossible for Dotcom to hide or destroy any evidence as the FBI supposedly seized Megaupload’s servers prior to the raid.

“All of that is so invalid and really angers me because you know the FBI was already in the data centre disabling access to the data they feared we would manipulate. So primary to you arriving there was no chance for anyone to do anything with that evidence,” Dotcom said.

You can watch the video here.

Tags: , , , , , , ,