Spy chief must answer Zaoui questions

By CATHERINE MASTERS

A High Court judge will allow the head of the Security Intelligence Service to be cross-examined during Monday's judicial review of Ahmed Zaoui's security-risk certificate.

Justice Hugh Williams issued his ruling yesterday after the Crown had objected to the request for Richard Woods to take the stand.

Justice Williams has granted Mr Zaoui's lawyers leave to question Mr Woods on his affidavit for the court hearing - but will restrict them to only three of 12 questions they wanted to ask.

The judicial review is challenging interim decisions made by the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, Justice Laurie Greig, in his review of the security risk certificate.

One of the decisions is to withhold from Mr Zaoui and his lawyers a summary of what secret information the SIS says it has on the Algerian.

Justice Williams heard arguments from both sides in chambers this week, but in yesterday's ruling said Mr Zaoui's counsel submitted that Mr Woods' affidavit showed "blanket and unparticularised assertions as to the feasibility of providing information and the consequences".

Rodney Harrison, QC, for Mr Zaoui, had suggested the affidavit sought to bolster the Crown's case on the certificate by asserting that classified security information was provided by reliable sources judged by Mr Woods to be credible, but did not provide material to support that view.

Karen Clark, for the Crown, had said the inspector-general's decision-making process was being challenged and that the proposed line of questioning was irrelevant.

Mr Harrison had replied that if the matters proposed to be put to Mr Woods were thought to be irrelevant, "so, too would be large sections of his affidavit".

The lawyers will be able to ask Mr Woods if foreign liaison partners referred to in his affidavit include Britain, the United States, Canada or Australia and, if so, which of these.

Another question will ask whether the originator or originators of the classified information had expressly stipulated, by restricting the use of the information, that Mr Zaoui should not be provided with a summary of information.

The third question will ask if a chronological summary of information on Mr Zaoui, drawn from publicly available sources, was compiled by the SIS.

But among the questions disallowed was one asking if the secret information was ultimately derived from the Algerian military regime, the Algerian secret services or that country's news media.

The judicial review is also challenging a decision by Justice Greig that under the legislation it was not his role to consider Mr Zaoui's human rights in his review of the security risk certificate.

Justice Williams has already granted the Human Rights Commission the right to make submissions in the judicial review proceedings, but explained yesterday that the case was important not just to Mr Zaoui but to NZ.

"It has the potential to affect the way in which this country is regarded around the world in respect of its treatment of persons such as Mr Zaoui."

Dr Bill Hodge, an associate professor of law at Auckland University, said the judge's ruling that Mr Woods could be questioned was significant.

He said for the questioning of Mr Woods to have been allowed, the conclusion must be that the intelligence gained on Mr Zaoui had to have come from outside the country and therefore did not endanger undercover operators in New Zealand.

It was also safe to conclude that the questions would not endanger New Zealand's intelligence connections with "our mates overseas", Professor Hodge said.

The last time an SIS director was called to give evidence in a New Zealand Court was in 1985. Brigadier Lindsay Smith was subpoenaed in a $600,000 defamation claim brought by former Prime Minister Sir Robert Muldoon against property millionaire Sir Bob Jones.