Government wants US to explain silence

By AINSLEY THOMSON

New Zealand is demanding an explanation from Washington about why it was not told that Andreas Schafer was detained and interrogated by the US Army in Iraq.

Foreign Minister Phil Goff confirmed last night that his ministry had contacted the New Zealander, whose ordeal was revealed in the Herald yesterday.

He said Mr Schafer did not know why he had been detained by the US, but thought it might have had something to do with his having travelled from Afghanistan.

Earlier, Mr Goff said the ministry had asked Washington and London six times about Mr Schafer's whereabouts after the alarm was raised in early April that he had gone missing in Iraq.

But it received no response, he said.

"We have asked Washington for an explanation of why he was detained, the circumstances that surrounded that detention, and why it was that although we made so many approaches he was not able to be located.

"I want to know the reason why those actions did not have a follow-up from the authorities in the US."

Mr Goff said a diplomatic note would now be sent through the NZ Embassy in Washington to the US State Department asking why it had taken so long to confirm Mr Schafer's detention, why he was not able to contact his family and why New Zealand authorities were not informed.

Mr Schafer, 26, from New Plymouth, was freed on Monday after being held for nearly three months. He has now gone to Amman, Jordan.

In an email to the Herald this week Mr Schafer said he was interrogated by United States Army staff four times.

The US Embassy in Wellington said the situation was investigated when it was first brought to its attention, but no evidence was found that Mr Schafer had been in contact with US troops in Iraq.

"We still have no evidence that any interaction occurred but, based on recent media reports, we are checking again," a spokesman said.

Mr Schafer set off for Baghdad to do computer work for a non-governmental organisation.

But in early March while in the city of Diwaniya, 190km south of the Iraqi capital, he was detained by the police, who handed him over to the US authorities.

"I was then held for nearly three months and interrogated by the US Army on several occasions," he told the Herald.

Mr Schafer's mother, Ursula, said her son had done nothing wrong and was one of a number of foreign nationals picked up by the Iraqi police the day after a serious bomb attack.

"Initially they told him it would take two days and he would be out. Then the two days turned into a week and another week ... "

The ministry has said Mr Schafer's release was negotiated with the help of the British and American authorities in Iraq.


Mr Goff said the State Department in Washington seemed to have poor lines of communication with US authorities in Iraq.

"I don't think it is a conspiracy, but more the overall chaos, confusion and lawlessness in Iraq."

National's foreign affairs spokesman, Dr Lockwood Smith, said he was concerned that the Government had regularly asked questions about Mr Schafer, but the US had not supplied any information.

"It is something the Government needs to pursue - why it wasn't able to get accurate information about his whereabouts and safety."

The Green Party's foreign affairs spokesman, Keith Locke, said the Government should have pushed the US for answers.

"If any other nation treated a New Zealander as poorly as this, the Government would be actively intervening and condemning such an abuse.

"Instead it seems to be accepting it as just another overhead in the Americans' 'war on terror'."

Prime Minister Helen Clark doubted there was any US conspiracy to withhold information.

"I think it probably relates more to the general chaos and disorder in Iraq than any deliberate decision to withhold something from the New Zealand Government."

The story so far

* New Zealander Andreas Schafer travelled from Afghanistan to Iraq to work on a software development in Baghdad.

* He was held by US troops and repeatedly interrogated for almost three months. He was finally freed this week.

* Six requests by the New Zealand Government for information about Mr Schafer went unanswered.

- additional reporting: NZPA