The soldier, whose name is still suppressed, has admitted a charge of attempted espionage. Pool Photo / Adele Rycroft, Manawatu Standard
A soldier with links to several far-right groups has admitted trying to pass on critical and classified information about New Zealand Defence Force bases to what he thought was a foreign agent, but was actually an undercover officer.
The name of the soldier and the country he attempted to give the information to are suppressed, but according to the charges, he tried to pass on a wealth of information obtained from the NZDF’s restricted IT system.
These included telephone directories for several military bases as well as maps, aerial photographs and a letter assessing the security vulnerabilities of Linton Military Camp in Manawatū.
The soldier also provided his own NZDF identity card, access codes to Linton and Ohakea bases, and his personal username and passwords for the NZDF IT system.
Today, at Linton Military Camp, he affirmed guilty pleas that he made in March to those charges. However, because of court suppression orders, this is the first time the media have been able to report his plea.
In addition to the information the soldier attempted to pass on, he also admitted to accessing the NZDF intranet and gained access to maps and telephone directories of the Woodbourne Air Force base in Blenheim, information on the Kauri Point ammunition depot, an aerial photo of the Air Force base in Auckland, as well as its telephone directory.
The soldier admitted a third charge of possession of footage of the Christchurch mosque shooting, as well as a copy of the shooter’s manifesto titled “The Great Replacement”. Both the video and the text were outlawed by the Chief Censor.
The start of today’s court martial has been five years in the making after the man was first arrested in 2020 after a joint investigation by the NZDF and police.
The soldier was originally facing 17 charges, including espionage, but those charges were replaced by attempted espionage, accessing a computer system for dishonest purposes and possession of an objectionable publication.
Espionage, commonly referred to as spying, is legally defined as the communication or delivery of information to another country with the intent to prejudice the security interests of New Zealand.
The only similar case to date in the country’s history occurred about 50 years ago when William Sutch was tried and acquitted in a civilian court of supplying a Russian agent with information.
According to the summary of facts, when the soldier moved into military accommodation, he came across a black freezer bag belonging to another member of the NZDF. It contained course materials and documents that had a restricted classification.
After the March 2019 Christchurch mosque attack, police commenced Operation Whakahaumanu, which saw the collation of intelligence on alleged right-wing extremist groups within New Zealand.
As part of this operation, the soldier was identified as a person of interest and police spoke to him on two occasions about his alleged association with a far-right group; however, he denied that the group’s mandate was anything other than a community-based group.
In 2019, the New Zealand Government became aware that a soldier had made contact with a third party, indicating he was a soldier who wanted to defect.
In November, he was contacted by an undercover officer pretending to be an official from a foreign country, and he agreed to meet the person in Palmerston North.
At this meeting, he provided a handwritten letter about what kind of information he could provide. Later that same month he provided the black freezer bag of information he’d found, including a “Handbook of Light Weapons 2011”, and said he could obtain maps, photographs, and could get a covert device into Army Headquarters.
In December 2019, the soldier met with the undercover officer again and handed over a red folder containing the Linton, Burnham, Trentham, New Zealand Defence College and Messines Military Camp telephone directories.
Also in December 2019, the soldier attempted to communicate further information he’d collected, including maps and imagery of Linton Military camp and an annotated aerial photo. He also provided a letter assessing vulnerabilities of the camp’s physical security, as well as access codes and information for the base.
The soldier further attempted to extract information from the NZDF’s IT system, including a map of Royal New Zealand Air Force Base at Woodbourne and in Auckland, and its telephone directory. A map of Royal New Zealand Naval Ammunition Depot Kauri Point and an aerial photo (boundary survey) of HMNZS Irirangi.
The soldier’s home was raided by the New Zealand Police in November 2019 and a hard drive was seized. It contained a video of the Christchurch mosque shooting livestream and the shooter’s manifesto.
The soldier was found to have links to two far-right groups, but says they were community groups, and though they were designed to be provocative they never intended to commit any violence.
In a statement read to the court by his lawyer, Steve Winter, the soldier said the Dominion Movement and Action Zealandia, were a positive support for him.
“We uplifted each other,” the statement reads, “It was okay to be us.”
“These were not terrorist groups.”
The soldier said that he was personally shocked by the mosque shootings in 2019 and didn’t agree with it, nor the shooter’s aims.
“If I heard anyone advocating this sort of thing, I would have reported them,” he said.
Following the shootings, the police began investigating both the Dominion Movement and Action Zealandia, and the man was spoken to twice.
He said he was asked what the groups’ “end game” was, and if they had any targets.
“I was terrified…I believed I had become a target in my own country,” he said.
The soldier said he joined the army to protect his country and had never intended to put his fellow soldiers at risk.
Jeremy Wilkinson is an Open Justice reporter based in Manawatū, covering courts and justice issues with an interest in tribunals. He has been a journalist for nearly a decade and has worked for NZME since 2022.