-
Related
The partner of Tame Iti, the most high profile catch in Monday's anti-terror swoops says she is outraged at the way police treated her family.
Police arrested Iti at the Whakatane flat he shares with Maria Steens and children.
Steens has been Iti's partner for 10 years and was beside him in bed early Monday morning when police came calling.
"The most powerful image I have is of Tame spread-eagled out face down on the concrete with guns pointing at his head and a police dog sniffing around his head. And that's the last I've seen of Tame," she says.
Iti, Steens and her daughter Amie Rangihika were taken from their house, down the street where they say the 17-year-old was searched in her nightie in full public view.
"Me and my mother were just on road over there, we were separated and guarded by armed men," says Rangihika.
Steens and Rangihika were released later that afternoon but not before police removed photos from the fridge and some art work.
Steens says they found no guns and cannot quite believe she has been caught up in what could be soon classed as terrorist activity. She says she does not think Iti is a terrorist.
It has been alleged Iti has been apart of training camps in the Uruwera National Park, something Steens says she knows little about.
"Not to sure about camps. All I can say there is wanaga, motu haka, it's about pig hunting, surviving."
Iti's father, Frans lives next door and is planning on complaining to the police.
"I am very angry the way my daughter and granddaughter were treated like common criminals in full public view, in their nightie in cold, cold morning bare feet," he says.
Steens says life in the small Whakatane flat will carry on.
