He's no terrorist, says Zaoui's wife

The wife of Algerian asylum-seeker Ahmed Zaoui, who has been in prison for 11 months, says he has "never been a terrorist".

Leila Tidjani, who is in hiding in Southeast Asia with the couple's four children, told TV One's Sunday programme that she feared for her husband's life if he was extradited from New Zealand.

Zaoui was elected an MP in Algeria's first democratic elections in 1991, but the Government was deposed in a military coup, which plunged the country into civil war.

Despite being granted refugee status by the Refugee Appeals Authority, he is still in jail and under threat of being deported, pending a review of his security risk certificate by the inspector-general.

"He has never been a bad man," Leila Tidjani said. "He is a family man, a caring man, a loving person ... He has never been a terrorist - it is a very wrong allegation."

Family friend Samir Bennegadi, regional representative of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) party, of which Zaoui is also a member, said the Algerian regime would do "whatever it takes to get him [Zaoui] back to Algeria".

"They would torture him and then they would have him executed."

Branded an enemy of the state, Zaoui has been sentenced to life imprisonment and death several times.

Leila Tidjani said she was "not strong enough" to tell her two youngest children their father was in jail. They thought he was "working for the world", doing humanitarian work.

- NZPA