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A legal ruling concerning the extradition of cryptocurrency executive Do Kwon from Montenegro was returned to a lower court on April 5.
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Montenegro’s Supreme Court ruled that it had upheld the legality of a prior lower court decision approving Kwon’s extradition to South Korea.
Do Kwon Extradition Case Returns to Montenegro Court
Both the United States and South Korea have filed competing extradition claims against Kwon, leaving Montenegro to determine which claim to prioritize. Kwon’s legal team is advocating for extradition to South Korea first, where analysts anticipate he may receive a lighter sentence.
Prosecutors argued that the appellate court had violated procedure by rejecting an appeal from Kwon’s legal team on the matter and instead elevating the decision to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court, however, stated that such decisions fall outside its jurisdiction.
“In a situation where it is a matter of competing requests from two states for the extradition of the same person, and not a conflict of requests for the extradition of the same person, as found by the lower courts, the court’s obligation is to determine, in accordance with its powers, whether the legal conditions for extradition have been met by the defendant in relation to each petition individually, after which the competent minister, not the court, decides on the permission and order of priority of extradition,” the ruling stated on Friday.
The decision regarding Do Kwon’s extradition will now be returned to the High Court in Podgorica.
Kwon Found Guilty of Fraud in Terra Crash
Kwon was initially arrested in Montenegro in March 2023 for possession of falsified travel documents. Following his brief detention, he was allowed to move freely within the country while awaiting a final decision on his extradition case.
Both the United States and South Korea are seeking justice from Kwon for the catastrophic collapse of the Terra network in May 2022, which resulted in the loss of $40 billion in investor value across its Terra (LUNA) and TerraUSD (UST) cryptocurrencies.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) also added Kwon to its list of crypto entities accused of defrauding investors by issuing unregistered securities. The SEC secured a victory on Friday, with a Manhattan jury finding that Kwon and his company had misled investors about the network, including its purported adoption as a payments technology.
BREAKING: DO KWON AND TERRAFORM LABS FOUND LIABLE FOR FRAUD IN OFFICIAL UNANIMOUS JURY VERDICT pic.twitter.com/Rm3eUACo7b
— Coinage (@coinage_media) April 5, 2024
“We are very disappointed with the verdict,” a Terraform Labs spokesperson said in a statement. “We continue to maintain that the SEC does not have the legal authority to bring this case at all, and we are carefully weighing our options and next steps.”
The post Do Kwon Extradition Case Remanded to Lower Court in Montenegro appeared first on Cryptonews.
