Editorial: Another side to story of Ahmed Zaoui

There are two sides to every story. Yet for a long time, in the case of Ahmed Zaoui, professor of Islam, MP-elect and sometime Imam, one perspective has prevailed. It told of a persecuted man of peace fleeing his Algerian homeland and a vast international conspiracy of malice and ineptitude to seek haven in New Zealand. Of a man denied human rights by the Security Intelligence Service's issuing of a risk certificate against him, despite a refugee authority declaring him a valid seeker of asylum. Of a government abusing civilised conventions by retaining Zaoui without trial for more than 500 days.

Over time, repetition of these lines - like water dripping on a stone - made an impression on public opinion. His lawyers have courted the public more than the judiciary. They exposed flaws, won procedural points and indirectly saw off the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security following his ill-judged "outski" comments on the Zaoui case.

As always, many thousands of kilometres from the scene of the crime, everything is not as it is made to seem. The Weekend Herald's extended inquiry in France, Belgium and Switzerland over the past few weeks has provided another side to this story. Our European correspondent Catherine Field, over many weeks, has sought out the views of those who investigated, and defended, Zaoui in cases involving criminal association in both France and Belgium.

She found a consistent belief that Zaoui was involved in a logistics role with groups known to have pursued terror agendas. That he was in a twilight zone that is nowhere as clear as his supporters want themselves and us to believe. Importantly, she has found dismay in those countries at the one-dimensional assessment of Zaoui's past made by New Zealand's Refugee Status Appeals Authority.

Words such as "naive" have been used and it would seem difficult to disagree. The authority dismissed without explanation the findings of courts in both France and Belgium, airily rejecting their findings and their procedures and taking Zaoui's word on the injustices he had seemingly endured. All without making any first-hand inquiry.

Increasingly, the authority's sweeping finding in favour of Zaoui looks unsustainable. The Government had legal advice that the finding could not be appealed unless on points of law; there was no room to challenge the patent failure to fully investigate and test the Zaoui version of his own past.

While the authority stands exposed, the original handlers of the Crown's case against him must also bear some responsibility for not being prepared to present the kind of background that the Herald has now put before the public. If, as seems obvious, the Security Intelligence Service was not given the opportunity to put the full story before the authority because of inter-agency or bureaucratic failings, that is a wider issue which the Government must address before the next such case. If the Immigration Service was not sufficiently astute to gather all information, domestic and foreign, relevant to Zaoui's case, then that troubled department needs further scrutiny.

It is possible that even if all information now in the public domain had been considered - and been seen to be considered - by the refugee authority that it might, on some basis, have decided that Zaoui was a refugee. But it wasn't. Its commendably long but lamentably shallow decision speaks volumes for how this public body failed in its duty.

The Government makes no secret of its intention to overhaul the security risk certificate process once Zaoui's case is determined. Its shakeup needs to go much further. And what of Zaoui? Security risk or not, the likelihood is that he will remain in this country indefinitely. International conventions dictate that, even if he could be expelled, he must be returned to the last country in which he had been other than in transit. That means New Zealand would be asking Vietnam to take on this international hot potato. The signals from Hanoi are not at all encouraging. In this case it looks as if the inmate might, quite literally, end up taking over the asylum.

Herald Feature: Ahmed Zaoui, parliamentarian in prison

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