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A man arrested during last week's police anti-terror raids who was bailed yesterday insists that he is no terrorist.
Rongomai Bailey, 28, who faces four weapons charges, would not go into detail about the four firearms charges he faces following his arrest in Auckland on October 15 due to legal advice, including questions about whether he'd ever been to the Ureweras.
But he said he wasn't interested in terrorism and his only interest in using firearms was in video games.
"I am not a terrorist. I've never planned to injure or even touch anyone in any manner that would cause any offence. It's insulting," he told a press conference at the Unite Union building in Auckland today called by him and his supporters.
He said his only interest in firearms was in "computer games when you run around and you shoot people", though he later told Radio New Zealand that he had fired an air rifle when he was aged five or six.
"It took me half a day to shoot one can. That was quite embarrassing actually."
Bailey said he had met Tuhoe campaigner Tame Iti, one of the 17 people arrested following the police raids, but did not know him well.
He said Iti gave a lecture on the Treaty of Waitangi in 1997 while he studied at design school in Wellington and that a friend of his knew him.
Bailey said he did not see a search warrant when about six or seven unarmed police arrested him about 7am at his girlfriend's flat on Monday morning.
"They were quite nice and let me put some clothes on because I was just in a towel and things. They took me away without handcuffs and told me they charged me," said Bailey, who had expected his arrest was for a minor offence and that he would be released that day.
"I was held at Auckland Central for hours, I ended up going to Mt Eden about 8 o'clock."
Bailey said he'd been involved in protests against the Wellington motorway bypass and genetic engineering and in setting up a community centre in Abel Smith St, Wellington.
"I'm not signed up as such to these groups. I see my role as to help where I can, whether it be with websites, putting up posters, handing out flyers or designing posters."
He also protested against the Iraq war and claimed the only real terrorists in the world was the United States government and its Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
"I just think this whole terrorism thing is bogus. All the terrorism I know is done by the United States going around and starting illegal wars and death squads in South America and all that."
Since moving to Auckland he trained as a film camera operator and had tried to set up a travelling film festival which highlighted social justice and environmental issues, though the travelling will be difficult given his bail conditions.
He said any plans to travel to the United States in future, and possibly Europe, had been ended by the accusations he was now facing regardless of whether he was cleared.
"They just go and google and look up my name and see `potential terrorist' and you get sent off to Guantanamo Bay," he said.
"I'm not going anywhere near the States."
He said he had not been involved with Maori sovereignty issues, though he knew people who had been.
Bailey said he was under protection while in prison, partly because "they thought I looked a bit weedy and that I would probably get beaten up".
Bailey was granted bail yesterday in Auckland District Court after Judge Josephine Bouchier ruled he did not pose a significant risk of reoffending or of interfering with witnesses and evidence.
He had been arrested under the Firearms Act and the Terrorism Suppression Act following police raids in Auckland, Wellington, Palmerston North, Hamilton, Christchurch, Whakatane and Ruatoki, 20km south of Whakatane.
The raids were the culmination of a year-long investigation into weapons training camps alleged to have been held in the Ureweras and netted a haul of weapons.
Prosecutor Ross Burns yesterday said police had reason to believe Bailey had attended the alleged military-style training camps near Ruatoki three times in the past year and that there was a chance he would follow through with violence should he be released on bail.
Bailey's bail conditions stipulate that he not have any contact with co-defendants or Crown witnesses, not to obtain a firearms licence, firearms or explosives, and not to go within 30km of Ruatoki.
He is due to reappear at Auckland District Court on November 1.
The other 16 people arrested in last week's raids remain in custody.
- NZPA
