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questions about the intelligence on which the raid was based. Some was locally sourced but it mainly referred to FBI intercepted emails and the bureau's "two-year investigation". It stated the intelligence had been "verified by the STG intelligence team".

No, said the sergeant. It had not been checked.

“THERE WAS NEVER a raid in New Zealand like that before,” says Dotcom. It was a claim verified in evidence from the sergeant who led the raid — and from Wormald, who commanded the operation. “We understood very quickly copyright infringement is not really an extradition matter,” adds Dotcom. “And all these other charges they threw on top were really just their way of having something compatible with extradition treaties.”

Dotcom said the indictment which led to the raid was part of an organised plan to remove Megaupload from the internet, regardless of what it might actually have been doing. “It has been manipulated to give them a way to later say, ‘We had probable cause’. So it was designed in a way to do that. When you’re the defendant and you read that and you know ‘this is all crap’, you know a lot of things have happened to allow them to go ahead and get a court to agree with this and get New Zealand to go along with it.”

He said there was an awareness of a “political dimension” because there are names on secret documents that are still sealed under United States’ court rules. It is understood one of those names approving the request of assistance from New Zealand is that of someone named as a contender for the office of President of the United States at the end of Obama’s term. Dotcom won’t talk about identities but says: “When you see those names . . . it doesn’t go any higher than that.”

Dotcom had talked of these possibilities from the outset. Even on release from prison, his first interviews touched on political manipulation. Since then, the message has stayed the same but it has been delivered with increasing firmness and certainty.

“Every single time I see a new submission, a new piece of evidence . . . the bigger picture gets clearer and clearer. Every time I see how dirty everyone has acted.” Is he angry? “Of course it makes me angry. You feel . . . it is so unfair that I am in this situation that I can’t live a normal life. I can’t innovate, I can’t be an entrepreneur the way I used to. I have to go to the police and report. I can’t travel anywhere. I don’t have access to my funds. I am being treated disrespectfully.”

The court heard questions about the Crown Law Office using the wrong — and therefore unlawful — restraining order to seize assets,

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