Photo: ADELE RYCROFT
A former New Zealand soldier convicted of attempted espionage wanted to defect to a foreign country. Instead, he'll serve time in military detention, and is likely to have his name suppression removed.
At first glance, it reads like a Tom Clancy spy thriller.
A disloyal, far-right soldier, an undercover officer posing as a foreign agent, and the passing on of secret army information, which could put the safety and defence of the country at risk
But this time, it isn't fiction. It's real life, in New Zealand.
For the first time, a serving soldier has been convicted of attempted espionage, sent to a military prison, and dismissed from service for attempting to spy on the Defence Force.
At his long-awaited trial, in front of a court martial at Linton Military Camp, the man - whose name is currently suppressed - pleaded guilty to three charges of attempted espionage, dishonestly accessing a computer system, and possessing an objectionable publication.
Newsroom journalist Marc Daalder broke the story six years ago, and attended the court case this week, and tells The Detail, that "this isn't James Bond, it's not the Hunt for Red October either ... what we have here is maybe more like a bumbling wannabe-spy".
"As the judge put it in his sentencing decision, 'How could you be so naive as to think this is the way forward, this is the right thing to do?'"
Daalder says that the soldier did have ties to far-right groups and "it's a serious, serious issue, but you don't want to overstate it either".
So how and why did a Kiwi kid grow up to be a would-be spy?
Daalder says the soldier had a troubled childhood; he was a loner and didn't make friends easily.
"Even once he joined the NZDF, he was not particularly well-liked, and that's part of what drove him, he says, to these far-right groups."
Daalder says in social media posts the soldier would boast that he "joined a Nazi organisation and [he said that] it's the best thing that ever happened to me, I used to be a loser, no job, no fitness or social skills. Now I'm working a decent job, have plenty of friends and a half-decent life, all thanks to the mentoring I got from older Nazis, and I have no regrets".
Before the 15 March terror attacks, the soldier founded a far-right group, 'The Dominion Movement', which meant that after the attacks he was on the radar of police and was pulled in for questioning several times.
In an affidavit presented at his court-martial hearing this week, the soldier said, "The investigators were incredibly aggressive towards me, often getting in my face and shouting. To me, their approach was actually violent."
The soldier said he was terrified, and felt he had to leave New Zealand and get to another country where he thought he would be safe.
"He frames himself as a victim of political persecution," Daalder says.
The soldier then contacted a third party, indicating that he wanted to defect.
"Following the New Zealand government learning of the contact with that third party, an undercover officer, posing as an agent of the foreign country, reached out to him and asked to meet ... and the soldier was asked to provide a letter, asking what he could provide that would assist that foreign country," Daalder tells The Detail.
"From there, it's a mixture of spy thriller and maybe a bumbling spy version."
Among the items the soldier provided were documents, including maps and aerial photographs of various defence force bases, along with passcodes, access codes, login details to its IT system, and telephone directories.
He also passed on handwritten assessments of the vulnerabilities of the Linton Military Camp, where he was stationed.
The soldier was eventually arrested at the Linton Military Camp in 2019, and put under open arrest, living in defence-subsidised housing and receiving full pay.
He initially faced 17 charges, including espionage.
This week, he pleaded guilty to attempted espionage, accessing a computer for a dishonest purpose, and knowingly possessing an objectionable publication, and was sentenced to two years in military detention - the longest possible sentence of detention available under the law.
Otago University law lecturer Sean Whittaker, who moved to New Zealand from Scotland a year ago, told The Detail he was "very surprised" by the spying conviction.
"New Zealand has a reputation of being a safe place to live, to work, and not being vulnerable to such action - either by external forces or by people within the country itself.
"I think that it's important to mention that the limited number of instances of espionage being detected and prosecuted is not indicative of the lack of quality of New Zealand's security intelligence services.
"Ultimately, I think they are doing a good job; they have detected espionage in this particular instance, and I think that's overall because New Zealand isn't exceptionally vulnerable to espionage," he says.
But does New Zealand really have anything worth spying on or information worth selling to foreign countries?
"Despite New Zealand's small size, it is a decent-sized player in the international community ... we do have things that are worth [spying on], as it were, things that are valuable, both intrinsic to us and to the global system as well."
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