World Affairs Board - View Single Post - Anti-terror raids in New Zealand

**Parihaka** · 11-13-2007, 17:27 PM

So there it would have rested; claims of innocence, the evidence suppressed and no doubt compensation claimed: until this morning, when two local newspapers who had 'obtained' the bail evidence the police presented during the initial hearings.

THE TERRORISM FILES

Quote:

'Get someone to assassinate the prime minister, the new one, next year's one. Just been in office five days, bang ... Yeah John Key ... just drop a bomb.'
PHIL KITCHIN - The Dominion Post | Wednesday, 14 November 2007

Today The Dominion Post reveals the secret evidence police amassed while investigating suspected terrorism activity in New Zealand. Compiled from hundreds of hours of covert surveillance, this is the intelligence that led to armed police conducting their controversial raids. This is the public's first chance to fully assess the merits of the police investigation.
Editorial: More than empty talk in Ureweras
Police to investigate newspapers over terror files

Secret surveillance of Urewera bush camp trainees reveals discussions about killing people for practice, throwing Molotov cocktails into gas-filled buildings, blowing up power stations, television networks and the Waihopai spy base.

Electronic bugs also revealed United States President George W Bush as a possible target, and a discussion about assassinating National leader John Key.

Police say their bugs also picked up talk of copying IRA and Iraqi guerrilla tactics by using hit-and-run squads for bush and urban warfare.

The Dominion Post has obtained the 156-page affidavit presented by police to Manukau District Court. The information in it was used to obtain search warrants when police suspected terrorist plots were under way. It provides details from hundreds of bugged conversations and text messages, descriptions of police video footage - and the reasons why police believed people were training to be terrorists.

The affidavit was sworn on October 10 by a detective sergeant from special investigations, a unit that scrutinises radical groups and issues of national security. Five days later, armed police raided the suspects.

The affidavit says that, between November 2006 and September this year, six "quasi-military training camps" were held in the Ruatoki area. Police say the trainees planned to use small squads to commit terrorist acts.

Bugged conversations recorded talk of plans for urban and rural warfare, of killing police, removing Pakeha farmers, assassinating politicians and committing actions so brutal that the public would think al Qaeda was responsible.

On August 16 this year, police intercepted a conversation between two suspects in a car. They discussed Mr Bush and speculation that he could visit New Zealand - and talked of using a sniper's rifle.

The police affidavit says: "I believe this relates to a hypothetical conversation about how they could kill the president of the United States of America, George Bush, and a conversation about the effectiveness of firearms."

In another bugged conversation, in a car on August 17, a suspect talks of killing Mr Key after the next election: "Get someone to assassinate the prime minister, the new one, next year's one. Just been in office five days, bang ... Yeah, John Key ... just drop a bomb ... Just wait till he visits somewhere and just blow them ... They won't even find you."

In another bugged phone call, on July 21 this year, a suspect says Tuhoe would go to war for the Ureweras "so we, we gotta make a plan how we're gonna block in the bloody place, shutting the whole place down". According to the affidavit, another suspect responds, "That's what I wanna hear," and another says, "So I got a couple of years to have fun."

One suspect talks of a strategic bombing campaign and using violence so extreme it would divide New Zealand. Another talks of doing what the IRA did in Britain: "It's all about guerrilla, guerrilla war ... It's about hiding and being able to fight another day."

Another talks of training for two years, focusing only on going to war, and handpicking an IRA-type cell to kill and create chaos, the affidavit says.

In other bugged conversations, police say they heard talk of making nail bombs, targeting Parliament and screening recruits. Conversations refer to IRA and al Qaeda training manuals and police say one suspect said he would show another how to make napalm.

One suspect is said to have talked of making a sniper's camouflage suit and obtaining a rifle capable of killing from 2500 metres. Police say one suspect said 100 people had been through the camps, but that 50 would be enough to start a war if they were well-trained.

The affidavit says surveillance of training camps shows:

# Vehicle ambushes and military-style drills with live rounds.
# "Terrifying" counter-interrogation training, including holding guns to participants' backs and accusing one of being a police informant.
# How to throw Molotov cocktails.
# How to extract colleagues under rifle fire.

In the background to the affidavit, police say one trainee using the codename Bl@ckmask hacked into the National Party website in 2004.

The affidavit says police watched or recorded trainees leaving their homes around the country and heading toward Ruatoki, often picking up others en route. Police say they stopped following the suspects once they drove into Ruatoki, for fear of being discovered, but they installed video cameras on accessways and at campsites, and bugged a camp meal room and sleeping room.

At the last of the camps, police say surveillance picked up 18 people and 14 firearms.