Lawyers seek chance for Zaoui to see secret videotape

By MATHEW DEARNALEY

Lawyers for Ahmed Zaoui are seeking access to secret videotape of a seven-hour interrogation of him by the SIS and police.

As the Algerian refugee marked his 43rd birthday yesterday in an Auckland prison, his lawyers said the tape was important in their bid to revoke an SIS security certificate containing unknown allegations against him.

Lawyers Deborah Manning and Richard McLeod say they will insist on Mr Zaoui's right to watch the tape with them, particularly as an hour of its sound has been lost.

They want him to see the tape to tell them what was discussed in that part of the interrogation, which took place on December 11 last year, a week after he arrived in New Zealand.

"The interview is critically important because it is one of the reasons he has been classified as a threat to national security," Ms Manning said outside Auckland Central Remand Prison after she and Mr McLeod had delivered books and birthday cards to their client.

Mr Zaoui told the Refugee Status Appeals Authority that he felt mocked by his interrogators, who he said did not identify themselves.



"He is very intelligent and analytical and they laughed at him," Ms Manning said.

She said Mr Zaoui was taken from the Papakura police station to an unknown location, and was not told he was being videotaped or of his right to have a lawyer present.

The interview was conducted in French, in which he was not fluent, through an interpreter so inept and reliant on a French-English dictionary that a police officer stepped in.

Ms Manning said the Zaoui legal team was considering complaints to the Police Complaints Authority and the Inspector-General of Security and Intelligence, Laurie Greig, who is reviewing the SIS risk certificate.