Director of security questioned over Zaoui

1.00pm


Action seeking to draw out secret information about Algerian refugee Ahmed Zaoui got off to a rocky start in the High Court at Auckland today.

Justice Williams was hearing arguments in a judicial review challenging the Security Intelligence Service's (SIS) refusal to provide Mr Zaoui's lawyers with a summary of the case against him, in which the SIS says he is a security threat.

Mr Zaoui has been in jail for a year after arriving at Auckland airport on a false passport.

He sought and was granted refugee status, but the SIS certificate has kept him imprisoned. The reasons why the SIS issued the certificate are not known, because it is an issue of national security.

Before the bulk of the submissions began, Karen Clark, who appeared for the attorney-general as first defendant, said an article in the Listener magazine last week had been "enormously corrosive of the processes of the inspector-general of intelligence and security, Laurie Greig".

She said if Mr Zaoui's legal team wanted to challenge Justice Greig's suitability to review a case after the Listener article, it should be done during the hearing.

Moments later Rodney Harrison QC, one of Mr Zaoui's legal team of three solicitors, said Justice Greig's suitability would be raised at the end of the hearing.

Justice Williams ruled the hearing would continue but that the court may have to rule on the issue.

After ruling last week that the director of security Richard Woods could be cross-examined, but only on three of 12 of the questions sought by Mr Zaoui's legal team, Mr Woods entered the witness box.

The first question from Mr Harrison was whether New Zealand's "foreign liaison partners" referred to in his affidavit included the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and Australia and if so, which.

Mr Woods replied that all four countries were included.

In his second question, Mr Harrison asked if the chronological summary of Mr Zaoui was drawn from publicly available sources.

"Yes, it was. That is all it is -- a compilation of material from publicly sourced material," Mr Woods said.

However, he added that the chronological summary was not used in the making of the security risk certificate on Mr Zaoui and that it had no status.

In a final question, Mr Harrison asked if the originators of the classified security information had expressly stipulated that Mr Zaoui should not be provided with a summary.

The originators had all stipulated it was not to be released outside the service, Mr Woods replied.

He said the Belgians and the Swiss had agreed to make available an unclassified version.

Mrs Clark objected to a hypothetical question by Mr Harrison about Mr Zaoui being a member of a terrorist group.

Justice Williams allowed the objection and Mr Woods left the witness box.

Mr Harrison then began his submissions that Mr Zaoui's life would be put at risk if he were to be deported because of the security risk certificate.

The hearing is expected to last two or three days.

- NZPA