Secret file keeps Zaoui in jail

By CATHERINE MASTERS

An Algerian man locked up in solitary confinement for nearly nine months at the maximum-security jail at Paremoremo has been cleared of accusations that he is a terrorist.

But the decision by a tribunal late yesterday granting Ahmed Zaoui refugee status does not necessarily mean he will be set free to live in New Zealand.

Members of the Algerian community and supporters of Mr Zaoui, a democratically elected MP forced to flee his own country more than a decade ago, are celebrating the decision - but they are celebrating too soon, says the Immigration Minister, Lianne Dalziel.

"It is not the end of the matter by any means," she told the Weekend Herald last night.

Mr Zaoui will stay in prison pending the outcome of a review of a national security risk certificate the Government issued in April.

The certificate, the first issued under revamped terrorism laws, overrides the decision of the Refugee Status Appeals Authority and Ms Dalziel still has the power to deport him.

She said classified security information about Mr Zaoui existed but it was imperative the information remain secret.

Wahib Zaza, a spokesman for the Algerian community, said it would be a travesty of justice if Mr Zaoui were deported.

The appeals authority investigations had been intensive, with 5000 pages of material, expert reports and appearances from world authorities and other witnesses.

The decision was the first step towards freedom and "the fair and final vindication of a true peacemaker", he said.

A close friend of Mr Zaoui, Samir Benkadi, an Algerian living in Australia, said last night he could not hold back tears when he heard the news, which was a victory for the democratic process in New Zealand.

He immediately telephoned Mr Zaoui's wife, Leila, who is in hiding in another country with the couple's four boys.

"She started crying as well. She didn't even wait to hear what I was going to say. She was overwhelmed and she was happy."

Mr Benkadi said that despite the wait for the review of the security risk certificate, Mr Zaoui should be moved from prison or at least to a more pleasant environment.

Mrs Zaoui earlier made an emotional plea to the New Zealand Government via the Weekend Herald to let her husband stay and allow the family to live here together.

She and the children were feeling the strain of a life on the run.

"The exile that we are now living is in fact two exiles, not just one. The first one is being exiled from our country and family and friends and the second one is being away from my husband."

Ced Simpson, director of Amnesty International in New Zealand, and Paul Buchanan, an Auckland University expert on terrorism, said the decision was good news but urged the Government to go public with any further information it had on Mr Zaoui.

"The onus is on the Government to publicly state why he is still being held in detention," said Mr Simpson.

He also urged it not to take account of intelligence from the Algerian Government, which was a brutal and repressive regime.

Mr Zaoui is a professor of Islam. He spent 12 years on the run after his party, the Islamic Front for Salvation, was ousted in a military coup.

He arrived in Auckland in December from Vietnam using fake South African papers, then told officials his real name and asked for asylum.

But his name caused such alarm he was spirited amid intense security to Paremoremo prison.

The Government's handling of the case has already backfired. Immigration Service spokesman Ian Smith denied knowledge of Mr Zaoui's arrival when the Herald questioned him in December, then wrote in an internal memo that everyone had agreed to lie.

The memo, obtained by the Herald last week, caused a furore in Parliament and is being investigated at the direction of Ms Dalziel.