A police witness in the Urewera trial has refused to answer
questions from a defence lawyer because the answers could
"compromise operation methods''.
Detective Inspector Geoff Jago was responsible for planting
cameras in the Urewera Ranges in 2006 and 2007 as part of a
covert police operation.
Defence lawyer Russell Fairbrother today asked Mr Jago from
which direction he approached a whare nui and whare kai in
the Ruatoki area.
"I believe, to answer that Mr Fairbrother, at this stage
could compromise operational methods and numbers involved,''
Mr Jago said.
He also declined to answer how many police were involved in
the operation.
Justice Rodney Hansen said he would not allow the witness to
refuse to answer questions. The jury has been asked to leave
the court room while a legal argument in closed court takes
place.
Tame Wairere Iti, Te Rangikaiwhiria Kemara, Emily Felicity
Bailey and Urs Signer are on trial in the High Court at
Auckland, accused of being involved in military-style
training camps.
They have denied charges of belonging to a criminal
organisation and possessing guns.
Yesterday, the court heard how police found an oven, which
had been used for target practice, and the remains of
exploded molotov cocktails.
Mr Jago told the court that he found broken Steinlager
bottles at the site which still contained traces of liquid.
He said the liquid smelt of fuel.
"From memory, one of the bottles had a small amount of cloth
which could have been a wick.''
The court also heard how participants in the Urewera camps
were taught how to use molotov cocktails, kidnap people and
guerrilla warfare.
In his opening address, Crown prosecutor Ross Burns showed
excerpts from police surveillance videos taken in the Urewera
Ranges, near Ruatoki in 2006 and 2007.
"The purpose was to equip them to kidnap people, commit acts
of sabotage and combat _ for want of a better word, guerrilla
warfare,'' he told the jury.
One of the videos played to the jury shows a group of people
getting out of a four-wheel-drive vehicle.
One man can be seen crouching behind the bonnet with a rifle
at his shoulder. Several other people rush out of the car and
run off screen. "It's really hard to see any lawful purpose
for that kind of exercise,'' Mr Burns said.
Other videos show people wearing balaclavas walking through
the bush. Some are armed with guns.
"You might wonder why they're hiding [their faces] from each
other if they think that what they're doing is lawful,'' Mr
Burns said.
He said two police officers pretending to jog through the
area after a training session found an old stove that had
been used for target practice.
The videos were released to the media after legal arguments
in closed court on Monday.
Mr Burns said Iti was the organiser, the "common thread'',
and had a Plan A and a Plan B. "Plan A on the face of it
seems to be negotiation. If negotiation was not successful,
he would resort to Plan B and that is what the revolutionary
military wing training was for.''
He said an intercepted conversation from Iti's computer
captured Iti talking to another man about a "revolutionary
military wing of Aotearoa''.
Another conversation attributed to Iti said: "We're planning
to war if we have to.''
Signer's lawyer, Christopher Stevenson, questioned police
actions. "What was the motivation in New Zealand at the time?
Serious violent offences? You are going to have to decide if
that proposition is fact or in the realm of the fantastical
and suspicion.''
He said his client lived with Bailey at the Parihaka
settlement in Taranaki. The area is known for its passive
resistance movement in the 1880s.
Iti's lawyer, Russell Fairbrother, also drew on history and
asked the jury to remember Tuhoe's history. He said that in
1866 a large number of Tuhoe people were dispossessed of
their lands by the Crown.
He said it was on the confiscation line that armed police
held up schoolchildren in the Ruatoki raid in 2007.
Mr Fairbrother said the intercepted computer conversation
referred to by the Crown was signed off with a term of
endearment usually used by men and women.
"I don't know who was using the computer, but I'll be
inviting you to conclude it was not Tame Iti.''
The trial continues.
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