CANBERRA, Australia (AP) Australia's secret service has raided the Canberra homes of a lawyer and a former spy who intend to allege in an international court in The Hague that Australia bugged the East Timorese Cabinet ahead of sensitive oil and gas revenue-sharing negotiations.
East Timor Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao on Wednesday condemned Australia's actions as "counterproductive and uncooperative."
The spying allegations come a month after revelations from National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden that Australia attempted to tap the phones of senior Indonesian officials in 2009 sank Australia-Indonesia relations to their lowest point in more than a decade.
East Timor will go before the Permanent Court of Arbitration on Thursday and use the alleged espionage to challenge the validity of a bilateral agreement struck with Australia in 2006 over sharing seabed oil and gas reserves between the countries worth billions of dollars.
Australian Attorney General George Brandis confirmed that he had authorized search warrants that were executed by the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, the main national secret service, in Canberra on Tuesday. Documents were seized.