Hotz flees to South America

The hacker at the centre of an increasingly bizarre legal battle with PS3 has reportedly fled to South America.

VGHQ has unearthed Sony documents claiming that George Hotz has been removing key components from his electrical equipment so as to hide crucial information the company is trying to unearth as part of its litigation.

His trip to South America has allegedly being used as an excuse for his inability to hand over said components to authorities.

Sony also alleges that Hotz has lied about having not having a PSN account or trying to access the network, with evidence related to the IP address of his most recently purchased machine used as evidence.

This is key, of course, because in signing up to PSN Hotz would have agreed to Sony’s terms and conditions which, of course, prohibit actions such as copyright circumvention.

In response, Hotz’ attorney Stewart Kellar insisted to IGN that the apparently missing components have indeed been handed over to Sony and that his trip abroad is not an attempt to escape legal proceedings.

"You can never take a vacation from a lawsuit," Kellar stated. "Mr Hotz has had to make himself available 24/7 for this litigation, which has been quite demanding on him.

"You have to remember that Mr Hotz didn’t choose to fight this battle, but now that he has been sued, he has put his heart into fighting this case that has enormous implications for consumers world-wide."

Claims that Hotz had funded his trip with donation money received in retaliation to court proceedings were also demised.

"As for any question as to whether Mr. Hotz has used donation money to take a trip to South America, that’s pretty silly," Kellar added. "Litigating against a massive company like Sony, who is represented by five attorneys, is very costly for a 21-year-old.

"The donation money George has received is being used exclusively for his legal defence. If there are any funds left after the lawsuit, George is planning to donate the money to the EFF [Electronic Frontier Foundation]."