A co-founder of the file sharing website The Pirate Bay is being held in Cambodia and is facing expulsion to Sweden, where he was sentenced to a year in jail for violating copyright laws.
Authorities arrested Gottfrid Svartholm Warg at a home he had rented in the capital, Phnom Penh.
National police spokesman Kirth Chantharith pointed out that Cambodia has no extradition treaty with Sweden but has requested details of Warg's case.
He added that his country would act as quickly as possible.
Warg and the site's three other founders were convicted by a Swedish court in 2009 of assisting copyright infringement by helping millions of the site's users to illegally download music, movies and computer games.
All were sentenced to one year in prison and ordered to pay 30 million kronor (€2.77m) to entertainment companies, including Warner Bros., Sony Music Entertainment, EMI and Columbia Pictures.
Warg failed to show up at an appeal hearing in 2010.
His lawyer said at the time that he had received texts from Warg's mother, claiming her son had fallen ill in Cambodia and would not appear in court.
The appeals court reduced the prison sentences for the three other co-founders from one year to between four and 10 months but raised the amount they would have to pay in damages to the entertainment industry to 46 million kronor (€5m).
All four defendants denied the charges, arguing that The Pirate Bay, which was founded in 2003 and has some five million registered users, does not actually host any copyright-protected material itself.
Instead, they insisted, it provides a forum for people to download content through so-called "torrent" files.
This technology allows individuals to transfer parts of a large file from several different users, increasing download speeds.
A group of Swedish officials are due to arrive in Cambodia to present documents concerning the case and discuss procedures for returning Warg to his home country.
In April, five internet providers - Sky, Everything Everywhere, TalkTalk, O2 and Virgin Media - were ordered by the High Court to block users' access to the site.
The verdict was a victory for the British Phonographic Industry, which represents music companies, which has been campaigning against the sharing of copyrighted material online.
BPI chief executive Geoff Taylor said: "Sites like The Pirate Bay destroy jobs in the UK and undermine investment in new British artists."
world
Printable Version
Share This