The extradition of Do Kwon, the founder of Terra, from Montenegro has been delayed once more. This prolongs the legal battles surrounding his role in the Terra/LUNA collapse, with both South Korea and the U.S. seeking his return for trial.
Kwon was detained by his home in the Balkan country since his arrest in the month of March 2023.
Do Kwon’s extradition to Montenegro has been stalled once more.
In the last week in last week the Balkan country’s appellate tribunal issued what appeared to be an definitive decision to transfer Kwon to his home country of South Korea. However, like previous extradition rulings in the case of Kwon, it has been delayed by the Montenegrin Supreme Court at the request of Montenegro’s most powerful prosecutor and minister of Justice Andrej Milovic, alike to local media reports.
Montenegro is now in the middle of a diplomatic battle over Terraform Labs co-founder. The two countries South Korea and the U.S. would like to investigate Kwon for criminal and civil allegations relating to the implosion of $40 billion of the Terra/LUNA eco-system in May 2022.
Both countries have made separate extradition requests to Montenegro in which Kwon has been detained since the month of March 2023 after he was detained for together an unauthentic Costa Rican passport en route to Dubai during his fugitive run.
Kwon is seeking the right to have his case efforts in his home country, South Korea, which has lower sanctions for financial crimes and has successfully fought previous decision to transfer him to his home country of the U.S. last year. However, the country’s courts and officials and prosecutors are divided over what request to honor.
Kwon’s Montenegrin defense lawyer Goran Radic didn’t respond to the CoinDesk’s requests for comments by the time of publication However, he said toVijesti the Montenegrin newspaper that the ongoing delay and seven court decisions in Kwon’s case are an “judicial shame.” Radic also told Vijesti that Milovic made an “illegal personal promise” to transfer Kwon in the U.S. instead of South Korea which had issued its extradition request first.
Montenegro’s prime minister, Milojko Spajic, is an individual investor of Terraform Labs, Bloomberg revealed earlier this year.
