Bush, Clark and Key identified as possible 'targets'

The Sunday Star-Times has learned that police alerted the US after recording threats against President George Bush who was tipped to visit here last month. Melanie Jones and Ruth Laugesen report.
The Accidental Terrorist
Tuhoe's history

US President George Bush was among those allegedly targeted in the threats recorded by police investigating the alleged Urewera terrorist training camps.

Prime Minister Helen Clark and National leader John Key were also discussed as potential targets by those under surveillance during the 22-month police Special Investigations Group operation.

Key has admitted he was briefed on the operation by the SIS but neither he, nor Clark, were yesterday willing to comment on the possibility they were potential targets.

Widespread public scepticism about the credibility of the threat has drawn an increasingly scathing response from Police Association president Greg O'Connor.

He said the operation had been "triggered by credible intelligence of a serious threat to New Zealand's safety and security" and was a "reality check" for New Zealanders who dismissed the threat of homegrown terrorism as laughable.

The Sunday Star-Times understands up to a dozen of the 17 arrested during Monday's raids across the country attended a training camp in the Urewera region last weekend.

The termination of "Operation Eight" was timed to allow participants to return home from the camp which had been under close surveillance.

Police are still working to identify others who attended one or more of the seven camps over four different sites in the Urewera bush and on the Whakatane riverbank during the surveillance period. They say more arrests are likely. Although many participants wore balaclavas, ski masks or keffiyeh scarves, others made no attempt to disguise themselves while rehearsing moves such as getting out from under pretend "enemy" fire.

The Star-Times, which broke the story on Fairfax Media's Stuff website last Monday, understands the police have seized more than 20 guns, including AK-47s and other military-style semi-automatic rifles, as well as stab and bullet-resistant clothing, camouflage netting, bomb-making recipes and an IRA manual.

Of the 17 people arrested, about half have links with the Maori sovereignty movement, while most of the others are self-described anarchists. Intelligence staff in Wellington informed their American counterparts of the recorded threat against Bush and an intelligence source told the Star-Times the Americans agreed to leave New Zealand police to handle any investigation. Bush and his wife Laura were tipped to make a half-day visit to New Zealand at the end of the Apec summit in Sydney in September.

Security assessments were reportedly under way, but by late June Clark was saying a visit was unlikely.

Some of the charges faced by those arrested in Monday's dawn police raids relate to activities monitored in the Urewera region during June.

The prime minister was "not making any further comment on any aspect of this police operation", a spokeswoman said yesterday.

American Embassy spokeswoman Janine Burns also declined to comment on whether any threat to Bush was a factor in his decision not to come to New Zealand. "We do not comment on security matters."

Campaigners with links to Maori sovereignty, environmental and peace groups were arrested in raids by more than 300 police many of them armed across the North Island. The police actions, which included roadblocks sealing off the small Bay of Plenty town of Ruatoki, have been strongly condemned by locals, activists and Maori Party MPs.

Police have reacted angrily to widespread scepticism from many commentators as to whether the activities recorded by police represent credible threats.

Warrants for the police searches were issued the previous Wednesday under the Terrorism Suppression Act and the Firearms Act.

One of those arrested faces a cannabis charge, the other 16 face firearms charges.

All but one, who has health problems, have been remanded in custody, most until early November.

Tuhoe activist Tame Iti, his nephew Rawiri Iti and Aucklander Jamie Lockett are the only ones who did not apply for name suppression.

Police Commissioner Howard Broad will decide early this week whether to recommend to the solicitor-general that anyone be charged with participating in a terrorist group.

Those charges cannot be laid without the solicitor-general's consent.

If terrorism-related charges are not laid, police will not be able to use any evidence such as audio recordings, emails or text messages gathered by using interception warrants in the firearms cases.

Surveillance, such as video and still photography, can still be used in firearms prosecutions.

Since Monday's raids, those claiming to have attended similar camps in the Urewera region have described them as wilderness training or attempts to get troubled youths back on track by putting them in touch with traditional Maori bush lore.

A man interviewed wearing a balaclava on Campbell Live on Friday night said the camps were to train young men to carry out security work overseas for big money.

Wellington anarchist Sam Buchanan, who knows some of the accused, describes what drives anarchists in New Zealand for Star-Times website sstlive.co.nz.

"Our opposition to authority and domination leads us to become involved in feminist, anti-military and anti-colonial movements, and to oppose racism and abuse. Anarchists are also involved in mutual aid projects... .

"Anarchists are often portrayed as violent, particularly by governments which themselves maintain huge armies and stockpiles of weapons... However, most anarchists accept that violence, while a form of authority, is permissible in self-defence."

Intelligence agencies researcher and journalist Nicky Hager believed last week's police raids may have been the result of increased police and SIS staffing and resources aimed at anti-terrorism, in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks.

"There were a whole lot of new units and equipment and resources brought in for anti-terrorism, where New Zealand hasn't had an indigenous terrorist threat," Hager said.

But they have headed down the track of seeing things in those terms and, for example, interpreting radical bravado talk as preparation for murdering people."

The SIS has refused to say whether it was involved in surveillance leading up to the police raids, although Key appears to have let the cat out of the bag by saying he was briefed about the operation by SIS staff several days before it occurred.

A police source said Operation Eight "has never been an SIS operation".

The SIS budget has almost tripled since 9/11 as a result of a changing focus to counter-terrorism, from $12 million to $33m in the current year. Staff numbers have risen from 100 to 150.

In 2002, police got new funding for a fulltime Special Tactics Group to respond operationally to terrorist emergencies, a fulltime Specialist Search Group and a National Bomb Data Centre manager. A new Strategic Intelligence Unit was also set up.

But SIS head Warren Tucker said the increased resourcing for anti-terrorism had not changed the way the SIS viewed potential threats. He also said the legislation ensured politically motivated surveillance was not undertaken.

While the prime minister has been careful to distance herself from the police operation, any surveillance warrants issued to the SIS require her signature and that of the commissioner of security warrants, Sir John Jeffries.

- © Fairfax NZ News