Montenegro Court Grants Do Kwon Extradition Appeal

Montenegro court of appeal has granted Do Kwon’s appeal to reject his extradition to South Korea and US leading to a retrial.

Montenegro court has granted Do Kwon one of the co-founders of Terra the appeal to turn down extradition. This means that the matter will be returned to the court of first instance for a retrial and decision.

Montenegro court of appeal reversed the judgment made by the Montenegro High Court to extradite Do Kwon to both South Korea and the United States according to a document submitted on February 8.

Montenegro court of appeal reversed the ruling and remanded the case to the court of first instance for review and consideration. As a result of numerous violations of the terms of the criminal procedural judgment, the appellate court decided to accept Do Kwon’s appeal.

Do Kwon’s counsel correctly asserted that the “wording of the decision is incomprehensible,” and the court agreed. The trial court did not handle the extradition requests made by South Korea and the United States clearly and concisely.

The high court did not correctly apply the legislative provisions of the extradition procedure, which is another point of contention. The appellate court makes the extradition decision, following Article 29 of the Law on International Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters, instead of the Minister of Justice, as in the regular procedure.

After completing his term in Montenegro, Chang-Joon, the former chief financial officer of Terraform Labs, has been repatriated to South Korea due to his criminal conviction.

Together with Do Kwon, he was taken into custody at the Podgorica airport in March 2023 while they were attempting to flee the country simultaneously. Han Chang-joon faces the possibility of a life sentence in South Korea due to the $60 billion Terra-LUNA issue that caused the collapse of the cryptocurrency market.

While this was happening, the case that the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was bringing against Terraform Labs and its co-founder, Do Kwon, was put on hold.

The authorities may be able to extradite Do Kwon from Montenegro due to the postponement of the civil trial. Kwon’s legal advisers stated that he would willingly appear in court in March and consent to extradition to the United States.