While police officers swarmed Kim Dotcom's Auckland mansion there was a video of the raid feeding back to a police station for senior officers to watch, it's been revealed in court.
Detective Inspector Grant Wormald of the Organised and Financial Crime Agency of New Zealand (OFCANZ) was cross-examined in the High Court at Auckland on Friday about using the elite Special Tactics Group (STG) in the January raid.
Lawyer Guyon Foley, acting for the defendants, questioned Det Insp Wormald about how senior officers, including himself, knew what was going on during the raid.
"We had a video feeding back to the police station," Mr Wormald said.
He also said senior officers received phone calls from the scene when at least three of the defendants had been located.
Mr Wormald would not say where the video was feeding from because of confidentiality.
The court was then adjourned and further details about the footage were suppressed.
Earlier on Friday Dotcom's lawyer, Paul Davison, described the raid as similar to an anti-terrorist strike.
Officers smashed down a door at the home, pointed guns at the children's nannies before demanding if there were any bombs or guns on the property, he said.
Residents at the house were then herded out of the house at gunpoint.
"It was a woefully incompetent and inept performance... inappropriate, heavy handed, inhumane and entirely unnecessary," Mr Davison said.
In his defence Det Insp Wormald said the STG was able to ensure that the arrests were made quickly and that the evidence was secured safely and efficiently.
This week's court hearing into the police raid on the Megaupload founder's home follows on from a ruling in late June that the search warrants used to carry out the raid were invalid.
The hearing will determine what should happen to some of the evidence seized.
Dotcom and his three co-accused, Mathias Ortmann, Finn Batato and Bram Van der Kolk, face copyright, racketeering and money laundering charges in the US.
The case continues although the next court date for the hearing has yet to be set.
An extradition hearing is scheduled for March next year.
NZN
