Do Kwon to Remain in Custody While Montenegro Courts Consider Extradition Request
Courts in the country approved bail for the Terraform Labs founder, but a South Korean extradition request is set to keep him in jail.
Jun 15, 2023 at 10:14 p.m. UTC:format(webp)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/coindesk/VCJPZBPQYFFTDFYYHVQI4WSPHI.jpg)
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Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon is to remain in Montenegro custody for six months while the country's courts consider an extradition request from South Korea, local news outlet RFE reported on Thursday.
The report, which the Podgorica High Court later confirmed to CoinDesk, followed an announcement from the same court on the approval of bail for a case involving document forgery. Kwon's bail request was approved after a previous rejection by the same court.
In March, the South Korean national was arrested in Montenegro over the alleged possession of falsified documents along with fellow Terra executive Han Chang-Joon. South Korean officials were already searching for Kwon, and following his arrest, the country requested Kwon's extradition, as did the U.S. Kwon also faces possible jail time in Montenegro over the document forgery case.
Kwon and Han are due to appear in a Montenegro court on Friday.
UPDATE (June 19, 07:17 UTC): Adds confirmation from Podgorica high court.
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Sandali Handagama is CoinDesk's deputy managing editor for policy and regulations, EMEA. She does not own any crypto.