Cambodia To Extradite Gottfrid Svartholm 126
judgecorp writes "The Cambodian authorities have said they will extradite Gottfrid Svartholm who is wanted in Sweden for his part in founding file sharing site The Pirate Bay. As there is no extradition treaty between Sweden and Cambodia, Svartholm is being extradited under immigration law, so it is not yet clear whether he will actually be sent to Sweden."
What's Cambodia getting out of the deal? (Score:5, Interesting)
I visited a friend in Phnom Penh a couple of years ago. They have lots of "DVD shops" in any of their shopping areas. 100% of the DVDs are pirated. If you want a non-pirated DVD, you have to find an airport. I think there's also one high class mall that contains one dvd store with non-pirated DVDs and software.
Cambodia has no taxes. The money the government runs on is half bribes and half foreign aid. To bring in more foreign aid, they know they have to stop piracy, but that's their only incentive. When foreign ambassadors come to visit, they'll send out a signal to all the DVD shops, and they'll all close down. 3 days later, they all come back.
Re:Deport NOT Extradite (Score:4, Interesting)
Probably because the Swedes made the request.
Extradition treaty or not, if the Swedes request him, and there is no bar to complying, the Cambodians can very simply comply with the Swedes' request. If he had not broken immigration law, there would probably be some protections for him, but not necessarily. In this case, the Cambodians want to deport him and the Swedes have asked for his return. There is really no reason for them to not accede to that request.
The interesting thing with a deportation is the deporting country will generally want to place the deportee in a place where they will be able to be taken care of, usually their home country. Sweden is probably very willing to put him up, all expenses paid, in a nice jail cell. Win-win for everyone. Except for Gottfrid Svartholm, of course.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)