Security service hints at secrets in Zaoui case

By CATHERINE MASTERS

SIS chief Richard Woods has offered his first hint as to why Algerian asylum-seeker Ahmed Zaoui is in prison without charge - but still refuses to be specific.

In an affidavit to the High Court at Auckland, Mr Woods says secret information held by the SIS relates only to the period after Zaoui fled Algeria.

Much of the information appears to surround decisions made by countries in Europe where Zaoui sought asylum but was rejected.

The Weekend Herald has obtained copies of affidavits submitted to the High Court for next week's judicial review proceedings challenging the secrecy behind the Security Risk Certificate issued against Zaoui in March.

They are so secret Zaoui has not been told the allegations against him.

Mr Woods says that if he made the information public it would not only risk identifying the sources and/or the methods by which it was obtained but would also "fail to observe restrictions placed by the originator on the use of that information".

His grounds for the certificate were Zaoui's criminal convictions in Belgium and France, refusals by Belgian tribunals and courts to grant refugee status and the Swiss decision to expel him.

Mr Woods also cites but does not detail classified security information providing background to these decisions and similar intelligence relating to the period after Zaoui left Switzerland.

Other classified data he used concerned materials in Zaoui's possession on his arrival in New Zealand and interviews held with him.

There had been no contact with the Algerian Government and the classified information was "provided by reliable overseas liaison partners and judged by me to be credible", Mr Woods said.

The certificate was issued five months before the Algerian MP, whose Islamic Salvation Front party was overthrown in a bloody coup, was cleared of terrorist links by the Refugee Status Appeals Authority and granted refugee status.

The authority was highly critical of the non-secret information supplied by the SIS.

Affidavits from former intelligence agents say there is no reason why Zaoui should not be given a summary of the secret information.

An affidavit from Zaoui says he doesn't know why he has been assessed as a threat to the security of New Zealand, but that he needs to know so that he can defend himself.

"I believe it to be both unjust and unfair that secret evidence and undisclosed opinions and conclusions of the director of security could operate to over-ride my rights as a recognised refugee ...

"At all other times in the past, when allegations against me have been put to me for comment, I have been able to successfully refute them and explain how they are incorrect."

Zaoui has been imprisoned for almost a year since he arrived in New Zealand seeking asylum.

He fears torture and death if returned to Algeria and writes that he has already been a victim of contaminated intelligence and disinformation stemming from Algeria.

Another affidavit is from former Australian spy Andrew Wilkie who quit his job in March in protest at the way he believed that country's Government was distorting intelligence to justify the Iraq war.

He says there is no sensible reason a factual summary of the case against Zaoui could not be used publicly.

Paul Buchanan, a political science lecturer at Auckland University and a former United States intelligence agent with top-secret clearance, also says it is "perfectly feasible" to provide a summary without revealing sources.

This is done routinely by most intelligence agencies operating in a democracy and also served to give the press and others the opportunity to publicly check the information, something usually welcomed by intelligence agencies.

In their affidavits, Mr Wilkie and Mr Buchanan describe how intelligence material is gathered, analysed and disseminated - although Woods does not accept they know how the New Zealand SIS operates.

Mr Wilkie, who was a senior intelligence officer in Australia's Office of National Assessments, says countries such as New Zealand usually have limited insight and no control over the priorities and practices of countries sharing intelligence with them and only selected information is shared.

"This puts a recipient country such as New Zealand at risk of being deliberately manipulated or accidentally misled," Mr Wilkie said.