KEY POINTS:
Algerian Ahmed Zaoui was today triumphant and all smiles after winning New Zealand's most protracted battle for refugee status.
But his fight continues, with the next step likely to be an attempt to bring his South East Asia-based family to New Zealand.
Mr Zaoui has been separated from his wife, Leila Tidjani, and four children since arriving in New Zealand in December 2002.
The former Algerian MP immediately sought refugee status -- having flushed his false passport down an aircraft toilet -- saying he would be tortured or killed if he went back to Algeria.
He spent almost two years in prison, including 10 months in solitary confinement, waiting for his case to be decided as he fought a Security Intelligence Service (SIS) certificate declaring him to be a security risk who should not remain in New Zealand.
Mr Zaoui was declared a genuine refugee in August 2003 by the Refugee Status Appeals Authority and released on bail in December 2004.
He has since lived at the Dominican Priory in Auckland but remained in the public eye; he has appeared in a TVNZ promotional advert and was a performer at the 2005 New Zealand Music Awards.
Also in 2005, he wrote a book of poems representing the time he spent in prison.
Today's ruling by SIS director Warren Tucker, means he is free to live as a refugee in New Zealand and could become a citizen within a few years.
Dr Tucker said that, as a result of new evidence presented at the hearing, he was satisfied Mr Zaoui was no longer a security risk.
Following the ruling, he conceded the initial SIS decision was justified on the basis of the information they held.
``But he does not accept that he has, in fact, at any time, been a danger to the security of New Zealand or any other country,' a statement on his behalf said.
``Nor does he accept that the classified information on which the SIS has relied, to which the director refers in his press release, is accurate in relation to the accusations concerning him which it apparently contains.'
The long-running saga has claimed at least one high-profile scalp along the way; former Intelligence and Security Inspector-General Justice Laurie Greig supported the initial ruling but resigned in March 2004 after the High Court ruled he ``should not participate further in this review'.
Justice Greig famously told Listener magazine that Mr Zaoui would be ``outski' on the next plane if it were up to him.
Former SIS director Richard Woods, who made the initial ruling, retired last October.
But a winner in the 4-1/2-year battle -- as well, obviously, as Mr Zaoui -- is his lawyer, Deborah Manning.
The case shot the young Aucklander from relative obscurity to household name, with her all the while remaining personable, approachable and, perhaps just as importantly for Mr Zaoui, reasonable.
But the New Zealand taxpayer is possibly the biggest loser; New Zealand First MP Peter Brown recently said he understood it had cost nearly $4 million to get to this point -- with more to come.
Mr Zaoui, an associate professor of theology at the University of Algiers and imam of his local mosque, was democratically elected to represent the Algerian Islamic Front for Salvation in December 1991. However, the new government was overthrown in a military coup in January 1992 and he fled to Europe.
He was accused of being associated with the militant Armed Islamic Group but has denied any such involvement.
He was deported from France to Burkina Faso in west Africa. Fearing for his safety, he fled to South Africa, then to Asia.
In 2003, the Algerian Government convicted him of terrorism and sentenced to death. However, he has never been proven responsible for any terrorist acts.
Algeria sentenced him to death. New Zealand has given him a new lease on life.
- NZPA
