Enemy of the State: The Ahmed Zaoui File The New Zealand Herald

What do you do when the state locks you in jail and calls you a terrorist - but refuses to say why?

For the first time John Keir reveals the inside story of the fight to free New Zealand’s highest-profile political prisoner Ahmed Zaoui, from the man...

When Algerian fugitive Ahmed Zaoui arrives in New Zealand on a false passport just before Christmas 2002 and asks for asylum, it sparks a five-year security scandal, leading two young immigration lawyers Deborah Manning and Richard McLeod into...

In a post-9/11 world, Ahmed Zaoui’s arrival immediately thrusts New Zealand into the US-led War on Terror, and he is locked up in solitary confinement. The problem for his defence team is that the SIS refuses to reveal its evidence that Zaoui is a...

The Ahmed Zaoui case is a test for Helen Clark’s Labour Government, as she has already refused to allow New Zealand to be part of the American ‘coalition of the willing’ invasion of Iraq. Now her government is under pressure to show the country’s...

Even when Zaoui wins refugee status, the SIS still argues he is a threat to our national security – and won’t say why. Things get more complicated when a retired judge set to hear Zaoui’s case gives a magazine interview…

Zaoui becomes a hero when he is transferred from solitary confinement to Mt Eden Prison, where some inmates believe he is a friend of Osama bin Laden. Meanwhile, the stress of the case has an impact on his lawyer Deborah Manning’s personal life.