Police, found guilty of "fundamentally unlawful" conduct, are to return equipment they illegally confiscated from Nicky Hager

Report from Felix Geiringer, Scoop, 17 March 2016

Nicky Hager and lawyer Steven Price are travelling to Auckland tomorrow (Friday) to collect the computer equipment and files seized in the 2 October 2014 police raid on Mr Hager's Wellington home. All the items will be returned to Mr Hager untouched,
after the High Court decided late last year that the raid on Mr Hager's house had been "fundamentally unlawful".

The computers and other property have been in sealed containers inside the Auckland High Court building during the court proceedings. Mr Price was present
during the raid and signed the seals before the containers were removed from Mr
Hager's house. He
will be inspecting them to ensure that no one has accessed Mr Hager's property while it was in storage awaiting the court decision.

Mr Hager and Mr Price will also watch as a police officer destroys a police hard drive and memory card on to which the officers had copied materials from Mr Hager's house during the raid. The hard drive and memory card have been sealed up with the rest
of Mr Hager's belongings inside the Court. After they have been destroyed, the police will give the remains of the devices to Mr Hager.

This process is expected to start at the Auckland High Court at 12 noon on Friday. Mr Hager and Mr Price expect to bring out the returned property and the
destroyed police storage devices at about 12.30 pm.

The police have refused to allow media to be present while the officer is destroying the hard drive and memory card.


http://wellington.scoop.co.nz/?p=87258

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