Vol. 75/No. 19      May 16, 2011

“These people will never, ever get a fair and just trial,” Tamati Kruger, spokesperson for the Tuhoe iwi, or tribe, said. More than 150 well-known Maori, academics, and others have endorsed a letter from prominent lawyers Jane Kelsey and Moana Jackson calling for dropping all the charges.

More than 300 police carried out “anti-terrorism” raids on 60 homes in cities and towns across the country on Oct. 15, 2007. The town of Ruatoki in the Tuhoe territory of the Urewera mountain range was a particular target. The groundwork for this “Operation 8” was laid by a year of surveillance under the 2002 Terrorism Suppression Act (TSA).

Prominent Tuhoe activist Tame Iti is one of the defendants who come up for trial May 30. All 15 face charges under the Arms Act. Iti and four others also face indictments for “participating in an organized criminal group.”

The police and government pursued the case under these allegations after their initial attempt to prosecute under terrorism charges was rebuffed by the Solicitor General. They claim that the defendants participated in weapons training camps in the Ureweras.

Writing in the April 2 issue of the New Zealand Herald, business writer and senior columnist Fran O’Sullivan said that while she “hold[s] no brief for … Tame Iti,” the refusal of a jury trial runs counter to the country’s “human rights record.” She also criticized the “prosecution’s apparent drive to retrofit the case so that the police can use what was initially deemed illegally gained evidence”—a reference to material obtained under TSA warrants.

A new movie exposing the frame-up has been screened at film festivals in Wellington, Auckland, and Dunedin. Operation 8: Deep in the Forest features eyewitness accounts of the 2007 police operation by residents of Ruatoki.  
 
 
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