A trip to New Zealand will put America’s chief prosecutor on the same soil as a flashy internet mogul who is fighting extradition to the United States on charges he assisted massive piracy of copyrighted movies and music.
US Attorney General Eric Holder visits New Zealand next week for an annual meeting of a “quintet” of attorneys general from mostly English-speaking countries - and not to meet up with the entrepreneur Kim Dotcom.
The founder of defunct file-sharing service Megaupload, Dotcom has oscillated between assailing Holder’s trip and wanting to hear what he has to say in person.
It was unclear on Thursday whether Holder would appear in public. His speech at the University of Auckland is planned primarily for students and will be closed to the public and the media, although his US speeches are usually open to the media.
In Twitter posts, Dotcom requested a ticket to the speech, offered to send T-shirts and an ethics manual to wherever Holder is staying and challenged his followers to film Holder while a Megaupload theme song plays for a US$500 prize.
Dotcom tweeted that he would like to understand Holder’s definition of cybercrime, one issue the quintet works on.
