An appellate court in Montenegro has upheld the decision of a lower court on the extradition case of Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon.
Kwon is facing criminal charges in his native South Korea and the US for the $40 billion crash of the TerraUSD stablecoin and its companion token, Luna.
Both countries sought Kwon’s extradition after the disgraced cryptocurrency mogul was arrested in a Montenegrin airport in March 2023.
In June, the High Court of Podgorica ruled that Kwon should be handed over to South Korea and not the US as the extradition request from Kwon’s homeland arrived earlier than that of the US.
On Thursday, the appellate court, which reviewed the decision, supported the ruling. The court also says that there was no appeal against the decision.
Reads the translated statement of the appellate court,
“According to the assessment of the Appellate Court, the first-instance court correctly established the fulfillment of the legal conditions for extradition for both petitions in accordance with the provisions of the Law on International Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters and that the request of the Republic of Korea arrived earlier in the order of arrival compared to the request of the USA.”
The development comes months after the Montenegro Supreme Court overturned a decision to extradite Kwon to South Korea because of procedural lapses in the lower courts.
Citing Do Kwon’s lawyer Goran Rodic, Bloomberg reports that Montenegro will arrange the extradition with assistance from Interpol.
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