Paul Buchanan: Tell us why pilot was such a risk

The case of Rayed Mohammed Abdullah Ali, the Yemeni national detained and deported because of his alleged connections to the September 11 hijackers, raises troubling questions about the handling of the case.

Much has been said about the breach of border security and failures of intelligence that allowed him to obtain a student visa, enter the country with minor changes to his name and pass unnoticed in spite of being repeatedly mentioned in the 9/11 commission report as a flatmate of one of the hijackers who made extremist speeches at a Phoenix mosque (allegations never proven in a court of law).

Speculation has centred on how he was discovered most likely by accident, thanks to a tip from an alert citizen, and why he was bundled out of the country under section 72 of the Immigration Act, which allows for no appeal of the deportation order.

Concerns remain that he was not interrogated so as to ascertain whether he had local contacts in New Zealand or was part of a larger network in this part of the world. Worse yet, Government refusal to explain the grounds for the use of section 72 on Mr Ali raises speculation that he was guilty of nothing more than past association with a September 11 hijacker and a naive belief that he could resurrect his dream of becoming a commercial pilot despite that association. If such is the case, it reflects poorly on New Zealand's reputation for fairness and tolerance.

The issue may be darker than that. Reportedly, Winston Peters was the first Government official tipped off as to Mr Ali's presence. If true, and given Mr Peters record with regard to Muslims, that adds a twist to the affair that raises the possibility of political machinations behind the scene.

Mr Ali has not been convicted of any crime anywhere and the Government admits that he posed no threat to New Zealand yet deported him as an imminent threat to national security without explaining why it believed him to be so.

The Government claims that his switch from English language lessons to flying lessons was a no-brainer cause to deport him forthwith. Yet he finished his eight-week English course without incident and was open about his plans to enrol in flying school to try to pursue his quest for a commercial pilot's licence. Given the amount of people who violate the terms of their student visas without incurring section 72 deportations, that is not enough to justify Mr Ali's treatment.

What is most disturbing is the way in which he was deported and the destination to which he was sent.

Deportation under section 72 of the Immigration Act is a form of extrajudicial rendition. No evidence of crime or culpability is presented and no court is involved in the issuance of the deportation order.

Although the Governor-General signed off the order, she had to accept without verification the Government's case against Mr Ali. Perhaps the Government had compelling reasons for invoking section 72 against Mr Ali, but it has chosen not to divulge them, even to the Governor-General.

Therein lies the problem, because for all intents and purposes this is exactly the process by which suspected terrorists throughout the globe are extradited to US-operated clandestine detention centres, where they are held and interrogated indefinitely without charge under conditions of extreme duress.

To be sure, Mr Ali was not captured by unknown persons and whisked off in an unmarked aircraft, but in its circumvention of judicial procedures his section 72 deportation runs close to the tactics of the US extrajudicial rendition programme.

Mr Ali was sent back to Saudi Arabia, where his family resides. He has reportedly not been seen since his return, and his family claims not to have had any contact with him. This is troubling because Saudi Arabia has repeatedly been charged with human rights violations, including the torture of political prisoners.

His disappearance also raises the spectre of his disappearing into what European investigators have called a spider's web of secret prisons run by the US with the knowledge and assistance of other countries (for example, by allowing the US to run clandestine prisons on their soil). Saudi Arabia is one of those countries.

In sending Mr Ali back to Saudi Arabia the New Zealand Government appears to have violated its own laws (including section 72), which prohibit the deportation of people to countries in which human rights violations occur and where there is a likelihood that they will be subject to abuse.

Moreover, it makes New Zealand, in spite of its protestations about the excesses of Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere in the fight against militant Islamicists, a direct accomplice in the rendering (legally known as refoulment) of suspects to the clandestine spider web.

Why was Mr Ali detained, and why was he subjected to a section 72 deportation order? Contrary to its claims, the Government can answer without revealing a classified source or information. It should do so to reassure an increasingly sceptical public that its motives were genuinely connected to a threat to national security, its methods were justified, and Saudi Arabia was the appropriate place for Mr Ali to be returned to.

Otherwise, New Zealand's security services run the risk of appearing to be what they ostensibly abhor - an unaccountable and politically manipulated repressive apparatus whose operating rationale has little to do with genuine threats to national security, and which has little regard for the consequences of its actions other than partisan liability at home.

* Paul G. Buchanan is the director of the Working Group on Alternative Security Perspectives at the University of Auckland.