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Spy claims surprised Kaihau

Nov 25, 2004 12:33 PM

The man who says he was spied on by the Security Intelligence Service says the first he heard of it was when he was approached by two reporters from the Sunday Star-Times.

The newspaper claims SIS agents have bugged various organisations, and were told to gather personal information on Maori leaders.

Whititera Kaihau, of Auckland's Ngati Te Ata tribe, says he was sending emails last year to what he thought was the Nauruan embassy in China seeking legal help for indigenous people.

But the reporters later told him he was in fact sending the emails to two people watching his movements from Hamilton.

Kaihau says the pair produced what they said was an intercepted email which he recognised as one of his own.

There are calls for either an independent person or the Inspector General of Intelligence and Security to look into the claims.

Maori Party co-leader Tariana Turia has written to the Inspector General, retired judge Paul Neazor, asking him to initiate an immediate inquiry into the allegations.

She says assertions from the Prime Minister that the claims are a work of fiction are not sufficient to allay the concerns raised by them.

"The allegations are serious and they are not the kind of allegations that you can just laugh off," she says.

Turia says she has already been bugged once - two weeks before she quit parliament and the Labour Party to contest a by-election.

She says a security firm found evidence of phone bugging at her former ministerial house in Wellington.

Turia says she couldn't see the purpose in going to the police as the only people who could have got into her house were the ministerial services or the SIS.

"The company that said the phone had been interfered with told me it probably wouldn't be the SIS because they had more sophisticated means."

Turia met SIS head Richard Woods last Monday. During the 20 minute meeting he told her it wasn't the SIS, but now she's not so sure.

A number of opposition party leaders on the parliamentary committee which oversees the SIS have called for an independent inquiry.