Spy base priest’s activist past
Friday, May 2nd, 2008Jarrod Booker; 1/5/08
A Catholic priest who took in and kept tabs on freed Algerian asylum seeker Ahmed Zaoui is one of three people charged with inflicting an embarrassing blow to a top-secret spy base. Dominican friar Peter Murnane joined organic gardener Adrian Leason and Hokianga farmer Sam Land in yesterday’s early-morning raid on the Waihopai satellite communications interception station, near Blenheim. They used sickles to puncture one of two 30m rubber balloons that protect radar aerials from the weather. Prime Minister Helen Clark called the raid “a senseless act of vandalism”, and the head of the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) ordered an urgent investigation into the base’s security.
