15 March 2002. Thanks to RM.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?thesection=newsthesubsection=&storyID=1191386
13.03.2002
America's top policeman was at the head of an international security summit held under extraordinary secrecy in Queenstown.
The summit's cover was blown only when United States Federal Bureau of Investigations director Robert S. Mueller III was seen boarding an unmarked Gulfstream 5 jet for Australia yesterday at Queenstown Airport.
The Prime Minister refused to comment on the summit, but a Government official last night confirmed Mr Mueller had been in Queenstown as part of a conference of English-speaking security chiefs.
Police diplomatic protection squad members had joined his security screen.
As the US mourned its dead on the six-month anniversary of the September 11 terrorism attacks, Mr Mueller was heading for a series of meetings understood to include a special briefing of Australian Prime Minister John Howard.
Mr Mueller, who had been in office for only a week when the terrorists struck, flew to Canberra just before 1pm after three days in New Zealand.
Another Gulfstream 5, with US Air Force markings, left before him.
The FBI director was one of about 20 guests, including security chiefs understood to be from the US, Britain and Australia, who stayed at Millbrook Resort near Arrowtown.
Mr Mueller, a former US Assistant Attorney-General, heads a crime-fighting agency of almost 30,000 employees, of whom more than 7000 are investigating the September 11 attacks and sequels such as the anthrax mailouts.
The guests and about 30 minders, who are also understood to have included an US hostage rescue team in case of a terrorist attack, had two dinners at Queenstown restaurants outside Millbrook.
Camera-toting tourists were politely bailed up and briefly interrogated by special agents around Millbrook. Reporters and photographers were told that a group of "overseas officials" were holding low-level talks.
New Zealand diplomatic protection police and US Secret Intelligence Service agents wearing International Affairs Forum badges vetted visitors entering or leaving the resort.
Gibbston Valley Winery general manager Ross McKay said agents clearing the way for a dinner at his restaurant on Sunday night were as thorough as for former US President Bill Clinton's visit in 1999.
"They looked in the fermentation vats and had a good look at a mobile bottling plant," he said.
Helen Clark's chief press secretary, Mike Munro, said he had been told not to discuss the conference.
Detective Superintendent Bill Bishop, the police national crime manager, said of the Queenstown operation: "We haven't got anything to say in respect of any activity that occurred down that way."
Wellington international affairs commentator Terence O'Brien, a former New Zealand ambassador to the United Nations, challenged the Government last night to "come clean" and tell the public what was happening in Queenstown.
"Having foreign police forces on your soil is an issue for national consideration - we are not a national security state."
Mr O'Brien said that if the head of the FBI was making a tour of New Zealand and Australia, it disclosed a new international role for what was traditionally a domestic criminal investigation force.
The FBI's headquarters in Washington DC would not comment last night on Mr Mueller's visit, but invited the Herald to call back today.
- STAFF REPORTERS
13.03.2002 5.07 pm
New Zealand officials participated in the secret conference held by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in Queenstown this week, Prime Minister Helen Clark told Parliament today.
She had approved the conference taking place and it had been "good for New Zealand".
The two-day conference of about 25 secret service agents, some understood to have been British, ended yesterday.
A FBI spokesman from its head office in Washington DC yesterday confirmed its director, Robert Mueller, was at the conference held in the closely-guarded Millbrook Resort.
In Parliament, Miss Clark faced questions from the Green Party's foreign affairs spokesman Keith Locke who wanted to know who was there and the purpose of the conference.
"I can confirm that a gathering of officials, which included the FBI director, was held at Queenstown and that relevant New Zealand officials took part," she replied.
"In the post-September 11 environment it is especially important that such gatherings can be organised discreetly, and for that reason I cannot give any further details."
Mr Locke asked under what authority US special agents interrogated people around the Millbrook Resort.
"I suggest he phones the United States embassy if he wants to make those sort of allegations," Miss Clark said.
National's leader Bill English questioned her about whether approval for the meeting had the support of the Alliance and the Greens, but he didn't get a direct answer.
"This gathering was one which I approved. I can say it was only good for New Zealand," Miss Clark said.
- NZPA
(C) 2002 New Zealand Herald
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=1191571thesection=news&thesubsection=general
14.03.2002
By VERNON SMALL
The Prime Minister has denied that United States security guards protecting officials at a secret conference in Queenstown were armed in breach of New Zealand law.
Officials privately acknowledged yesterday that New Zealand had reverted to its policy of "turning a blind eye" to US and British agents carrying guns to protect VIPs.
In Parliament, Green MP Keith Locke asked Helen Clark whether the foreign agents were armed.
She replied: "I am advised that the normal New Zealand practice in these matters was complied with."
Later she told the Herald the law was being strictly enforced, and that was what she was referring to. Suggestions police looked the other way were wrong.
"The situation [banning foreign personnel carrying firearms] is quite clear as far as I am concerned ... and I am confident it was upheld."
The Herald understands that the "blind eye" policy has been in operation since the 1984 visit of US Secretary of State George Shultz, and was also applied when the Queen visited.
In some cases US and British bodyguards were sworn in as temporary constables to allow them to carry weapons.
Before the 1999 Apec conference in Auckland, the law was amended to let the Police Commissioner authorise bodyguards to carry firearms.
The law was changed after the US made it clear President Bill Clinton would not otherwise attend. The change included a "sunset clause" that meant it expired in October 1999.
Police spokeswoman Sarah Martin confirmed yesterday that it was illegal for foreign personnel to import or carry firearms.
Asked if there had been requests for foreign security officers to carry firearms at the Queenstown conference, she said it was against policy to go into security matters.
Onlookers near the conference, attended by US Federal Bureau of Investigations director Robert S. Mueller, said security guards appeared to be armed.
Armed New Zealand police officers were present.
Helen Clark confirmed that "relevant New Zealand officials" attended the Queenstown meeting, and that Mr Mueller was there.
"In the post-September 11 environment, it is especially important that such gatherings can be organised discreetly and for that reason I cannot give any further details."
She advised Mr Locke to call the US Embassy if he wanted to make allegations that New Zealand citizens were interrogated.
"This gathering was one which I approved, and I can say that it was only good for New Zealand."
The two-day conference of about 20 secret service agents, guarded by about 30 minders at the exclusive Millbrook resort, ended on Tuesday.
Mr Mueller and the agents flew out of the resort on Tuesday in two Gulfstream 5 jets, one of them a US Air Force aircraft bound for Canberra, where he was due to meet Australian officials yesterday.
Mr Locke said New Zealanders should be told in broad terms what the foreign secret service officers were doing here.
"It is unacceptable that New Zealanders should be told so little about what was obviously an important conference." He questioned whether the conference was related to New Zealand's involvement with the US in the war in Afghanistan.
It appeared that foreign agents were stopping people and asking questions.
"That is a policing role. We don't on the surface accept that that is a legitimate role for foreign law enforcement officers. We have our own police force."
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0203/S00077.htm
Tuesday, 12 March 2002, 11:16 pm
Column: Maree Howard
The U.S. Government is using US-registered Gulfstream V jets to secretly transport dozens of people suspected of links to terrorists to countries other than the United States, bypassing extradition procedures and legal formalities. The same type of jets which secretly flew into Queenstown airport last Saturday putting that community in a spin over clandestine CIA activities. Maree Howard writes.
According to Scoop's intelligence sources the CIA is plucking people with suspected terrorist links from countries such as Indonesia and transporting them to other countries where they can be subjected to interrogation tactics - including torture and threats to their families - that are illegal in the U.S.
In some cases U.S. intelligence agents remain closely involved in the interrogation.
Sources tell Scoop that after Sept. 11, these sorts of movements have been occurring all the time. "It allows us to get information from terrorists in a way we can't do on U.S. soil," the source said.
In one example, the CIA informed Indonesia's State Intelligence Agency that Mohammed Saad Iqbal Madni was an Al Qaeda operative who had worked with Richard Reid, the Briton charged with trying to detonate explosives in his shoes on and America Airlines flight from Paris to Miami last December.
The CIA provided information about Iqbal's whereabouts and urged Indonesia to apprehend him.
Two days later he was in the hands of Indonesian intelligence agents and two days after that - without a court hearing or a lawyer - he was hustled aboard an unmarked U.S. - registered Gulfstream V jet parked at a military airport in Jakarta and flown to Egypt. He remains in custody in Egypt where he has been interrogated by U.S. officials but there is no word of his legal status.
His situation resembles that of other Islamic activists who have been taken into custody in cooperation with the CIA and spirited away to unknown destinations.
U.S. officials would not comment on evidence linking Iqbal to Reid and Indonesian operatives say U.S. officials did not detail any alleged involvement with terrorism other than to say he was connected to Reid.
"The CIA asked us to find this guy and hand him over and we did what they wanted, " an Indonesian official said.
Singapore and Malaysia have been pushing for more regional cooperation.
U.S. CIA agents are known to have worked with various intelligence agencies in Africa, Central Asia and the Balkans, and have sent dozens of suspected people to other countries for interrogation.
Which makes the clandestine arrival in Queenstown of the two Gulfstream V jets with more than 30 secret service agents on board all the more mysterious - and worrying.
Rumours abound in Queenstown with the media and photographers escorted from the grounds surrounding Millbrook resort where it is thought there might be some kind of high-powered security conference taking place. It has been established that they are CIA.
Tourists taking scenic photographs are also being bailed-up and briefly interrogated by agents wearing ear-pieces while a black CIA surveillance style van is parked near the resort.
Rumour has it that the agents are also living-it-up eating at some of the top Queenstown establishments.
The group flew in to Queenstown airport in the two Gulfstream V jets direct from an unnamed destination on Saturday. Apart from that nothing is known - and no-one is telling.
Nevertheless, the U.S. is by-passing laws in its fight against terrorism and spiriting people away for interrogation outside of U.S. laws. It is to be hoped that New Zealand has not become part of that ring.
Then again, perhaps the CIA agents are in Queenstown on a diversionary trip on their way home to the U.S. as a reward for the transportation job they've done in other countries.
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