Five years after the New Zealand Police launched the "anti-terror" raids in the Ureweras, questions remain unanswered about the nature and extent of the most weighty alleged crimes.
This week, following a six-week trial, the "Urewera Four" were on bail awaiting sentencing on firearms charges, but with a decision still pending on whether there is to be a retrial over the more serious charge of belonging to a criminal group.
These are slim pickings for a police and prosecutorial team which has spent six years investigating and presenting its case to the courts.
It is certainly a far cry from the outcome that might have been expected given the scope of the original police raids, instigated as they initially were under the auspices of the Terrorism Suppression Act.
Whether thwarted by the complexity or inadequacy of law itself, misguided interpretation of the legislation pertaining to surveillance - as the Supreme Court ruled for the 13 other people originally arrested - the lack of evidence, the flawed nature of the investigation or quite simply the perversity of the jury system is unclear.
But it is already evident the operation, the subsequent legal skirmishing and the trial may have had unintended consequences.
One of those is the bad odour between police and Tuhoe, never copybook but which moved from pungent to poisonous in the wake of Operation 8.
This was the 2007 raid on the rural settlement of Ruatoki in which heavily armed, balaclava-wearing police shut down the small rural Bay of Plenty settlement, detaining people for several hours, allegedly subjecting women to intimate body searches and holding others in sheds while property searches took place.
Tuhoe claim this amounted to civil rights breaches and are investigating possible legal action.
Regardless, it is understood senior police are aware there is work to be done in repairing a badly frayed relationship.
Incidental to the publicity surrounding the case, the spotlight has fallen on Tuhoe itself and its bellicose historical relationship with the Crown, its various claims over land - including Te Urewera, Urewera National Park - and its long-held pretensions to a degree of iwi autonomy.
Then there is the elevated profile of Tame Iti himself.
Iti has a life-long record as a Tuhoe activist, his actions veering between the deliberately theatrical and the sinister. As one of the four tried on the serious charge of belonging to a criminal group, indeed portrayed as its ringleader, he made the most of the publicity, turning up to court every morning of the trial in a suit, colourful shirt and tie and a top-hat.
But this showman is a polarising figure with his full facial moko and sometimes threatening gestures.
And while the jury evidently was not unanimously persuaded to view him and his three co-accused as the "terrorists" some evidence was assembled to suggest the notion of him put about by the defence as New Zealand's own Nelson Mandela is patently absurd.
The longer the Crown continues its deliberations over a retrial, the less likely it is there will be one - the public interest rationale for it appears to be diminishing while the associated potential costs rise.
For all that, and while in retrospect they may have gathered their evidence and executed their warrants somewhat differently - the new Search and Surveillance Act that came into law this week would have helped - the police were right to bring this case.
When they are privy to information pertaining to the apparent planning of crimes, they are obliged to act. In the context of the times, with the global "war on terror" to the fore, and aided by a newly-minted Terrorism Suppression Act, it is unsurprising they erred on the side of caution.
Equally, while the defendants may have imagined they were involved in a benign Urewera boot camp, loose lips and inflated braggadocio could not be construed as anything other than an invitation for the authorities to act.
