Zaoui case gets change of minister

By CATHERINE MASTERS

Helen Clark was tight-lipped yesterday about whether the grounds for the security risk certificate against Algerian Ahmed Zaoui would be re-examined after Immigration Minister Lianne Dalziel's resignation.

But the Prime Minister said a new minister might take a "different view of it".

She would not be drawn on whether she believed the SIS summary of allegations against Mr Zaoui - released yesterday by his lawyers - was adequate, saying she did not comment on security issues.

Mr Zaoui's lawyers have condemned the summary as "inadequate" and "nonsense", and say security chief Richard Woods' reasoning of why the Algerian politician posed a threat to national security was "utterly flimsy".

Mr Woods' summary says the risk certificate was based on publicly known, security-related European decisions and convictions, plus related unclassified information.

But it was also based on classified security information that could not be released.

He says the Swiss Government had believed Mr Zaoui's activity in that country might lead to acts of violence and even attacks in Switzerland, and that activities of this kind in New Zealand could threaten the safety of New Zealanders.

If Mr Zaoui were allowed to settle here, it would indicate that New Zealand had a lower level of concern about security than other like-minded countries.

"That would impact adversely on New Zealand's reputation with such countries and thus on New Zealand's international well-being."

The High Court ordered the SIS late last year to release an adequate summary of the allegations against Mr Zaoui.

His three lawyers said yesterday that they had no choice but to accept in good faith that the one they had received was a complete summary.

But there was nothing in it that had not already been considered and comprehensively dealt with by the Refugee Status Appeals Authority, which granted Mr Zaoui refugee status last year.

If the summary had left out information, it would constitute a false document and might amount to contempt of court, said Deborah Manning, one of the lawyers.

The first allegation accuses Mr Zaoui of arriving on a false passport but the lawyers say that as a recognised refugee, he cannot be penalised for using false travel papers. The practice was commonplace among asylum-seekers.

Another allegation they condemned as bizarre. When Mr Zaoui arrived in December 2002 he had a videotape in his possession of his journey overland through Malaysia via Thailand and Laos to Vietnam while on his way to New Zealand.

The summary says the focus of the videotape, "on places which are not obvious tourist sites but which are frequented by Westerners, including an oil company building, tourist buses and an internet cafe, looked suspiciously like a 'casing video'."

Mr Zaoui's lawyers screened the videotape for the media, saying the tape was nothing more than a badly made home movie.

The videotape is jerky and at one point pans across a tall building that has an oil billboard nearby. This appears to be the building identified by the SIS.

It shows some scenes of the tourist bus Mr Zaoui caught into Vietnam, including a shot of sleeping tourists and of where the bus became stuck in mud.

The summary says an interview of Mr Zaoui by an Arabic-speaking SIS officer produced one point of security concern. This related to the veracity of an answer Mr Zaoui gave, which cannot be disclosed without compromising classified security information.

Mr Zaoui's lawyers say the SIS officer in question was a New Zealander who learned Arabic in Egypt. Communication between the pair broke down during the interview because of the officer's Arabic, and the officer wrote answers in English - "a feat which the best interpreters cannot accomplish".

Allegations relating to Mr Zaoui's convictions in France and Belgium and his expulsion from Switzerland had been comprehensively disposed of by the appeals authority, the lawyers said.

The Weekend Herald understands the authority received no prosecution submissions defending the integrity of those cases.

Mr Zaoui's lead counsel, Rodney Harrison, QC, said yesterday that the lawyers were not undertaking an academic exercise by analysing the reasoning of the director of security.

"A man has been in prison for 14 months, most of the time in solitary confinement, and because of the court proceedings, including an appeal by the Crown to the Court of Appeal, he is likely to be there for at least another six months before he even gets a hearing on the certificate."

Security Intelligence Service (Jan 27, 2004):

Response to the Summary of Allegations [PDF]

Herald Feature: Ahmed Zaoui, parliamentarian in prison

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