Hang on a minute, there is no hard evidence to show that NZF chose to ignore the law. If Arthur Allan Thomas or David Bain had been convicted on as much evidence there would be an uproar. Try putting your prejudice against NZF to one side and just deal with PROVEN facts
As an edit: I don't buy this 'the law is the law ' stuff either. If it was, we would have no lawyers, no judicial system, no common law, and no changes to the law because the original one was wrong.
Very reliable sauces say they did plus if they knew about de Vries and followed the rules. They knew.