Clark renews pledge on security law

By HELEN TUNNAH deputy political editor

Prime Minister Helen Clark has repeated her promise that the security law under which Algerian refugee Ahmed Zaoui has been detained for 13 months will be reviewed.

She would not offer her personal view about Mr Zaoui's detention, but said the Immigration Act's security provisions - including how long it should take for a case to be heard and the provision of evidence to a person accused of being a threat to New Zealand - would be reviewed once the Zaoui case was completed.

Mr Zaoui, a former Algerian politician, has been in jail since December 2002 after being declared a security risk when he arrived in Auckland without documentation, claiming he was fleeing persecution in Algeria.

He has since been declared a genuine asylum seeker by the Refugee Status Appeals Authority.

Although the law says the Immigration Minister can at any time withdraw the national security risk certificate issued against him, on the advice of the Security Intelligence Service, the Government has not done so.

The validity of the certificate is under review by the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, retired High Court judge Justice Laurie Greig.

Mr Zaoui's lawyers will go to court this week asking that he be removed from the case because of a perception of bias arising from remarks he made on the case last year to the Listener magazine.

Helen Clark and Immigration Minister Lianne Dalziel have already said the 1999 law would be reviewed after the Zaoui case is finished.

Yesterday Helen Clark said that when the case was completed, the law would be examined to see if it had worked as intended.

"I imagine that those who wrote and promoted the law didn't envisage the mechanics of it taking this long, so that's something that needs to be looked at."

She said she understood it had always been envisaged that accused people would be given a summary of the case against them.

Last year's court action, in which Mr Zaoui's lawyers formally asked for a summary of evidence against him, had been about the timing for the provision of that material.

Helen Clark said she did not think Mr Greig's reported comments amounted to the level of misconduct which should lead to him being dismissed as Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security.

Mr Greig told the Listener that Lianne Dalziel had the final say on Mr Zaoui.

"If that wasn't the case, then she wouldn't have a decision," he said.

"I'd be making my decision and it would be 'outski' on the next plane."

Green MP Keith Locke last night asked why Mr Zaoui remained in jail if the law which kept him detained was thought to be flawed.

Ahmed Zaoui

* Mr Zaoui, a former elected Algerian politician, has been in jail since December 2002 after being declared a security risk when he arrived in Auckland without documentation, claiming he was fleeing persecution in Algeria.

* He was a professor of Islam in Algeria, and when he was living in Malaysia he wrote an encyclopaedia on politics and diplomacy.