All charges against Rongomai Bailey have been dropped. Photo / Greg Bowker
All but one of the 18 defendants charged with firearms offences following nationwide police raids last October have been committed to trial.
But one defendant, Rongomai Bailey, was discharged after Judge Mark Perkins said there was insufficient evidence to bring him to trial.
Judge Perkins told the Auckland
District Court however there was sufficient evidence to bring the 17 others to trial.
Those 17 have been remanded on bail until a callover in the Auckland District Court on February 17, 2009 - at which they will not have to appear.
There was a heavy police presence at the court with supporters of the accused carrying banners outside the building.
Outside the court, Rongomai Bailey said he was relieved the firearms charges against him had been dropped. He said he would now head back to his farm to grow some vegetables and "chill out".
Mr Bailey would not comment on what was happening in the Ureweras and the so-called "training camps" because "it could be taken out of context".
Mr Bailey also criticised police, describing those still facing charges as "victims of police over-imagination".
He said there were a lot of negative connotations and he has found it hard getting a job.
"If anyone Googles my name it comes up in association with terror trials, terror files, terror camps and I don't even know how I could ever go to the States, they've got a terrorist watchlist of about 800,000 people," he said.
Mr Bailey's brother and sister - Ira and Emily Bailey - will stand trial. He said it depressed him to know that his friends and members of his family were still facing firearms charges.
"It's been a long year and it's been really hard to get a job where I live in the Coromandel and come up to the court case."
