KickassTorrents Founder is Still Fighting Extradition Two Years Since Arrest
- KickassTorrents Founder Artem Vaulin Was Arrested on July 20th, 2016 over piracy charges is awaiting a final extradition decision by a Polish court.
- There have been no public updates on the high-profile case for months, and all inquiries from the media were unanswered by Polish legal authorities.
- According to the latest report from the US Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, a final report from Poland has not been filed.
The internet piracy community was aghast at the arrest of KickassTorrents founder Artem Vaulin in the summer of 2016. The founder was arrested for running the popular piracy website and was arrested alongside other staff who were involved in the site's operations. Vaulin has been undergoing legal proceedings for the last two years and is eligible to be extradited to the United States.
Vaulin was not only charged with his involvement with KickassTorrents but also for trying to evade his arrest. He was found trying to leave Poland on July 20, 2016, after shutting down the website. The criminal case was filed by the U.S. government, and KickassTorrents was targeted because it was the most prominent torrent website around, allowing users access to pirated content via torrents. Vaulin was eventually released on bail in 2017 after being held in a Polish prison for months.
Image Courtesy of TorrentFreak
US Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois John R. Lausch revealed: “Defendant is still undergoing extradition proceedings in Poland, and the parties are not currently aware of a timetable for a resolution of those proceedings.” A hearing that was scheduled in a Polish court has been moved to October and it seems like extradition of the KickassTorrents owner is imminent.
Last year Vaulin revealed that his lawyers gave him the green signal when starting KickassTorrents and he didn’t know what he was doing was illegal. He also stated “I’m not crazy. If someone came to me to tell me the United States was angry with something I do, whatever it was, I would stop”. While KickassTorrents is not functional anymore, several alternative websites are up and running with the same user interface and torrents.
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