Arion Kurtaj's criminal trial opens November 9 at Woolwich Crown Court. Red Lion Chambers, which represents Kurtaj, listed the date in an August 5 post saying he had been assessed as fit to plead. Defense barristers Trevor Archer and Andrew Herd, instructed by Niamh Matthews-Murphy, are on record. GTABoom and Notebookcheck both reported the development on October 10. The timing puts the case running across the final days before GTA 6 launches.
Kurtaj was 17 when he breached Rockstar's systems in September 2022, uploading 90 GTA 6 development videos from a hotel room using a phone and an Amazon Fire Stick. He was under police protection at the time, having already been arrested in connection with the Lapsus$ hacking group. At a 2023 proceeding, a jury found that he had committed the acts alleged, but because he had been ruled unfit to stand trial, it could not decide whether he was guilty. A judge placed him under an indefinite hospital order rather than a conventional sentence. He was moved from the secure hospital to a regular prison in 2026.
The November 9 hearing is a full criminal trial, where guilt can be decided for the first time, for what Red Lion Chambers calls offences alleged to have been committed as a child. The case covers the wider Lapsus$ hacks, including Nvidia, Uber, Revolut and BT, not just the Rockstar breach. The exact charges have not been published. Rockstar has not commented on the trial date. GTA 6 launches November 19 on PS5 and Xbox Series X and S.