October 15th Solidarity - Remember the state terror raids

Tuesday, 16th October 2007, NZ Herald

A line of a dozen uniformed police, two abreast, formally marched into the Rotorua District Court late yesterday afternoon and stood guard at three separate doorways inside the building - as the bail application hearing for Tame Wairere Iti, 55, and a Hamilton woman, 24, got under way.

Iti and the woman, with at least 13 co-accused, are jointly charged under the Arms Act with unlawfully possessing firearms (a rifle, a shotgun and a military style semi-automatic) and molotov cocktails.

Iti was arrested by police earlier yesterday in a dawn raid on a property in Ruatoki Valley in the Bay of Plenty.

The woman will remain in custody for two weeks.

A bail hearing for Iti continues today.

Judge James Rota closed the court to the public and media to hear the bail applications.

The decision to do so was made after "lengthy and strident" arguments in his chambers between himself, crown prosecutor Amanda Gordon and defence counsel Annette Sykes and Louis Te Kani.

A line of a dozen uniformed police, two abreast, formally marched into the Rotorua District Court late yesterday afternoon and stood guard at three separate doorways inside the building - as the bail application hearing for Tame Wairere Iti, 55, and a Hamilton woman, 24, got under way.

Iti and the woman, with at least 13 co-accused, are jointly charged under the Arms Act with unlawfully possessing firearms (a rifle, a shotgun and a military style semi-automatic) and molotov cocktails.

Iti was arrested by police earlier yesterday in a dawn raid on a property in Ruatoki Valley in the Bay of Plenty.

The woman will remain in custody for two weeks.

A bail hearing for Iti continues today.

Judge James Rota closed the court to the public and media to hear the bail applications.

The decision to do so was made after "lengthy and strident" arguments in his chambers between himself, crown prosecutor Amanda Gordon and defence counsel Annette Sykes and Louis Te Kani.

Police raiding a central Auckland house went armed with a search warrant for specific items, including body armour, military-style clothing and a silencer for a .22-calibre rifle.

One man was held in custody to Friday, but was granted interim name suppression while he told his mother of his arrest.

Four people - at least one a veteran activist - were arrested in Wellington.

One house that was the focus of an early-morning raid in the capital is described as a "second home" for anarchists.

The house - at 128 Abel Smith St in the central city - is an address frequently used for a range of activities, from yoga and film screenings to dance parties and meetings.

It is also popular as a hostel for travelling anarchists, and doubles as a bicycle repair shop.

Two of those arrested listed the address as their residence.

Others appeared in court in Hamilton and Palmerston North.

An Auckland resident got a shock when police raided his house in the early morning.

They busted down the door of his Grey Lynn flat about 6.15am.

They took a computer, books and photos from the room of his flatmate, who was not home at the time.

The man said he knew his flatmate was involved in "Maori and environmental issues" but the raid was still a surprise.

"I did think police were over-reacting.

"[The man] had a lot of activist friends around the country but I didn't know the degree [to which] he was involved."

A High Court hearing is to continue in Auckland today after an objection was raised to a police bid to seize computers.

Auckland Civil Liberties Union president Barry Wilson told the Herald that police would have to be "very careful before they started chucking terrorist labels around".

He said investigators should have decided whether charges should be laid under anti-terrorism legislation before launching the raids.