Charles Graham-McLay
New Zealand’s Wellington (AP) In a military court, a soldier from New Zealand acknowledged attempting to spy for a foreign power.
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The conviction on Monday was the first in New Zealand’s history for spying. Both the soldier’s name and the nation to whom he wished to divulge knowledge were suppressed.
According to military court documents, the individual thought he was working with a foreign agent in 2019 when he attempted to share military material, including as base maps and phone directories, security vulnerability assessments, his personal identity card, and log-in credentials for a military network. The charge stated that his activities were likely to jeopardize New Zealand’s defense or security.
According to materials provided by the military court, he was conversing with an undercover New Zealand police officer gathering information on purported right-wing extremist organizations rather than a foreign agent.
Following a terrorist assault on two mosques in Christchurch in March 2019, in which an Australian white supremacist opened fire on Muslim worshippers, killing 51, the soldier was brought to the notice of police authorities as part of an operation.
According to court documents, the guy was questioned by officers twice on his membership in a group. The undercover officer then contacted him when the government learned that he had indicated a wish to defect.
Investigators discovered a copy of Christchurch shooter Brenton Tarrant’s livestreamed footage of his slaughter and a manifesto document he posted online before to the murders when they searched the soldier’s hard drive. The soldier, who acknowledged the accusation, joins a number of others found guilty in New Zealand of possessing or disseminating terrorists’ prohibited materials. In New Zealand, it is illegal to possess either without authorization.
According to Radio New Zealand, the individual claimed in a statement delivered to the court by his attorney that the two nationalist organizations he was associated with were merely associations of friends who shared his beliefs.
According to RNZ, the laywer, Steve Winter, also stated that his client denied endorsing the Christchurch shooter’s philosophy.
In addition, the soldier, who was stationed at Linton Military Camp close to Palmerston North, entered a guilty plea to using a military computer system corruptly. Earlier in the hearings, 17 counts against him were substituted with the revised suite of three offenses.
In New Zealand, the maximum penalty for each of the three offenses he acknowledged is seven or ten years in jail. Within days of Monday’s conviction, a military panel was supposed to pronounce his sentence.
Before he confessed to the crimes, the individual was scheduled to stand trial by court martial.
He was charged with espionage or attempted espionage for the first time before a military court in New Zealand. The last time a case of this kind made it to civilian courts was in 1975, when a public official was found not guilty of passing information to Russian agents.
The military of New Zealand will not comment until the proceedings against the soldier were over, according to a spokesperson.
