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NZ police hold 17 in terror raids | NZ police hold 17 in terror raids |
(about 6 hours later) | |
New Zealand police have arrested 17 people and seized a number of weapons during a series of anti-terror raids. | New Zealand police have arrested 17 people and seized a number of weapons during a series of anti-terror raids. |
More than 300 police were involved in the operation, was reportedly aimed at Maori sovereignty and environmental activists - not foreign groups. | |
Police Commissioner Howard Broad said those arrested had used firearms and other weapons at military-style training camps. | |
Among those held was the prominent Maori rights campaigner, Tame Iti. | |
The North Island raids were the first use of the country's Terrorism Suppression Act. | |
The people targeted were from "a range of motivations" and from various ethnicities, the police chief said. | |
"Based on the information and the activity known to have taken place, I decided it was prudent that action should be taken in the interests of public safety," Mr Broad said. | "Based on the information and the activity known to have taken place, I decided it was prudent that action should be taken in the interests of public safety," Mr Broad said. |
Months of planning | |
Armed police raided camps in the eastern Bay of Plenty, as well as a number of addresses in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Palmerston North and Hamilton, police said. | |
Media reports said the raids came after months of work by anti-terror police, with evidence gathered from hundreds of hours of recordings from bugged conversations, video surveillance, and tapped mobile phone calls and text messages. | |
One of the videos reportedly showed a military-style training exercise with live ammunition being fired in mountainous terrain. | |
New Zealand's Prime Minister Helen Clark said she was briefed on the planned police raids last week. | |
Asked if she was surprised by the police information, she said: "Yes and no. Surprised at the scale and numbers of people involved". | |
Tame Iti made headlines last month when he went to Fiji to offer support to coup leader Voreqe Bainimarama. |