Zaoui a reluctant celebrity

Ahmed Zaoui has developed a close bond with Father Chris Loughnan during his stay at the Dominican Priory. Picture / Martin Sykes

The sparsely decorated and usually serene 19th-century Christian sanctuary is abuzz with joke-cracking and roars of laughter.

It is dark and cold outside St Benedicts Dominican Priory in Newton, a rangy, humble building with a quiet air of benevolence, which radiates like a halo over the hum of motorway traffic at notorious Spaghetti Junction below.

Inside this echoey building this early winter's night, warmth and conviviality abounds among the guests. Gathered for dinner are various dedicated students, one bearded Algerian Muslim, one twinkly-eyed, Dominican friar and one crusading lawyer.

The chef is the Algerian, who allegedly has links to terrorists - at least, so believes the security service. The Algerian goes by the polarising name of Ahmed Zaoui who, wearing a pinny, does not look particularly threatening.

Since his release from prison in December, it has been a strange existence for the man who became a human rights symbol and inspires devotion among his followers. Ordinary people wish him well on the street. Truck drivers toot if they see him.

If the Government is to be believed, he is a threat to national security, but in the past six months he has been quietly pottering around with a group of Catholic priests and students. Just what does Zaoui do all day? And why do they like him so much?

Tonight is Friday night dinner and discussion night, a regular fixture these days at the priory. The dozen or so young people are part of a small invasion of mainly university students brought together by Deborah Manning, Zaoui's lawyer and the lawyer at the dinner table.

They help her with the photocopying and research and help to answer emails. Some are also on the priory roster, a round-the-clock protection squad which screens the refugee's telephone calls and visitors.

If it seems over the top, Manning says it is because when Zaoui was seeking refuge in Belgium in the 1990s he was set up.

As a leader of the expatriate Algerian community there, he had an open-door policy and people flocked to his house. He got into trouble for associating with the wrong people. Manning is making sure he cannot be accused of this in New Zealand.

Tonight's discussion topic is leadership versus charisma and should be interesting, given Zaoui's reluctant celebritydom. Ironically, it is a status thrust on him by a Government which would have preferred no one had ever heard of him.

On arrival at Auckland International Airport in December, 2002, his name raised an alert and he was secretly imprisoned. The news leaked quickly. He spent 10 months of a two-year prison stint in solitary confinement at maximum security Auckland Prison, Paremoremo, the conditions a catalyst for a nationwide movement urging his freedom.