View photosKEY POINTS:
A Catholic priest who took in and kept tabs on freed Algerian asylum seeker Ahmed Zaoui is one of three people charged with inflicting an embarrassing blow to a top-secret spy base.
Dominican friar Peter Murnane joined organic gardener Adrian Leason and Hokianga farmer Sam Land in yesterday's early-morning raid on the Waihopai satellite communications interception station, near Blenheim.
They used sickles to puncture one of two 30m rubber balloons that protect radar aerials from the weather.
Prime Minister Helen Clark called the raid "a senseless act of vandalism", and the head of the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) ordered an urgent investigation into the base's security.
It appears the weather may have helped the protesters' cause.
A "pea souper" fog on the morning of the raid made security cameras useless, said GCSB director Bruce Ferguson and "aided and assisted the offenders no end".
Australian-born Peter Murnane provided accommodation in Auckland to Ahmed Zaoui, the Algerian refugee accused of being a terrorist but later cleared.
He also had the job of checking that Zaoui kept to his bail conditions after being released from prison in 2004.
Mr Murnane has a history of activism that includes spilling blood on the floor of the United States consulate in protest at the Iraq war.
The three men, calling themselves the "Waihopai Anzac Ploughshares", broke through three security fences before attacking the dome with sickles.
They then built a shrine and knelt down in prayer to remember the people killed by United States military activity.
They were remanded in custody after appearing in Blenheim District Court yesterday afternoon charged with causing intentional damage and entering a building with intent to commit a crime.
They said the raid was "responding to the Bush Administration's admission that intelligence gathering is the most important tool in the so-called war on terror".
Spokesman Manu Caddie said the first goal of the protest trio was to be faithful to the gospels, and if it drew public attention to the spybase "that is a bonus".
The GCSB is looking into the apparent ease in which the three men got into the base.
"Clearly there are questions to be answered on that," Mr Ferguson told the Herald.
"I can't deny there has been a breach of security. We now have to find out how it happened, and how we can make sure it doesn't happen again."
Mr Ferguson said the protesters might have had "motives and ideals", but they had caused significant damage, and cost to the taxpayer.
The plasticised rubber dome they had punctured - it was held up by air pressure like a balloon - was there to protect the aerial underneath from weather, and to extend its life.
The dome damaged was about 10 years old and had been expected to last about 20 years or more.
It was not known how much the damage would cost to repair, Mr Ferguson said.
Mike Hyson, who owns a property near the base, said the raid had a "Keystone Cops" look about it. The protesters had crashed a truck they were planning to use and had left it down a bank.
"The adrenalin must have been going," he said.
Green Party MP Keith Locke, who has often protested against the Waihopai base, said his party did not condone criminal acts, but he could "understand the frustration of those who did it".
Global Peace and Justice Auckland spokesman John Minto said the photo of the deflated dome was a "powerful symbol of resistance to New Zealand's role in supporting the so-called war on terror being waged by the US".
