[ahenchan]

You are quite possibly right. And I don't mean to impugn NZ justice here because I have no additional information. Nonetheless I smell a rat. It should not be necessary to shoot themselves in the foot. Such cases so rarely happen that when they do, suspicions are naturally aroused. Just speculating: had there been (encrypted) information that Dotcom possessed which the authorities wanted, if a negotiation had ensued, wouldn't something exactly like this be a likely outcome? To me, plausible deniability, a still indeterminate outcome and Dotcom greed are indicative of a negotiation which is still underway.