Posts by Danyl Mclauchlan
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Shocking as they are, there is nothing apparent in the intercepts that justifies a terrorism charge. The snippets the Dom published are short on concrete planning and long on deranged gibberish.
The discussion about killing people for practice put the confrontation between the two hunters in context - presumably the police acted when they did because they couldn't discount the possibility that the suspects were going to attack hunters or trampers in the area.
I'm curious to know about the involvement of the pakeha activists and whether they were arrested as part of the round-up-the-usual-suspects routine as initially seemed likely, or if they were actively involved in the camps, which now seems very hard for a bunch of pacifists to justify.
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Fantasist fools - It is the kind of dribble that goes on at gun clubs et al.
When you're talking about 'killing white people for practice', stockpiling guns and honing your ability to ambush cars then you're the sort of person the police should keep a very close eye on. That's what we PAY them to do; how terrible would it be if these idiots did start blowing up food courts and the police had to reveal that they knew all about them but just decided to ignore them because they might have been full of hot air?
That Auckland dude isn't stable & anyone thinking popular rebellion is possible in NZ is deluded.This is piss talk with no credible threat.
Yeah, because deluded unstable people with guns never hurt ANYONE.
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So ... Dominion Post has revealed the secret evidence. It's pretty shocking. I still agree with Jon Minto, I think. why let it grow? Why didn't the police step in and talk to Tuhoe elders or Tuhoe police reps before the nonsense intensified?
Since Minto claimed that the taped evidence was 'the sort of thing you'd overhear in a gun club' he's looking pretty fucking stupid right about now, in my opinion.
If the police warned the suspects that they were under surveillance there's the danger that they'd continue their activities but take much more elaborate precautions; I think the smart thing to do would have been to continue to accumulate evidence and then move in when the planning became concrete enough to press conspiracy charges.
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What exactly did this stockpile consist of? How many unlicensed weapons were confiscated, and from how many different locations?
I'm kind of curious about this myself - I've heard varying reports; one of which claimed the police had only found 3 rifles, while early media reports described huge caches of military weapons, napalm bombs and molotov cocktails. The Herald on Sunday alternately had the police finding a grenade launcher - which sounds extremely scary - and a 'grenade launcher capable of firing flares - which sounds a bit like a flare gun and doesn't sound very scary at all.
Can anyone point me towards any reliable breakdown of what the police found or is this information not yet in the public domain?
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I thought Hager made a reasonable observation here:
the numerous police raids on and since October 15 appear to have been fishing trips by officers hoping to stumble over evidence of a plot that they had not managed to find in the previous year of intensive surveillance.
It seems possible that the police had been passed on some faulty intelligence (enter the SIS?) leading them to believe that every house in Ruatoki was stacked to the rafters with assault rifles and napalm. This would certainly explain their bizarre behaviour when they stormed the town. Perhaps their terrorism case was contingent on finding physical evidence which could be tied to conversations they intercepted. Then when it wasn't forthcoming we saw them get a bit desperate and start raiding the homes of random environmentalists and trade unionists ('that anthrax factory has to be around here somewhere . . .')
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Some of these guys are facing jail. I think that's a pretty stiff penalty for having illegal firearms, since this is an extremely widespread phenomenon. But it sounds like they had a lot of them.
Does anyone know this for sure? It's my understanding that the police captured a grand total of three illegal firearms but I'm not sure where I heard this and I'm happy to be proved wrong.
I also believe that most of the firearms charges are historical - ie, unlawful discharge of a firearm.
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Hell I remember being stopped by a cop on anniversary weekend who stood in the middle of Otaki main street with half of Wellington backed up on SH1 with the only motive being to check everyone going through town for out of date WOFs. I was deeply peeved at his wasting of my and other's time for something I hadn't done - no reasonable cause. I never got counselling even though it was quite scary for the kids to face the prospect of me being given a stern talking to. And it was obvious he was blockading the main route out of the innocent city of wellington . . .
I'm sorry, I nodded off in the middle of your equivocation - wake me up when he turns into a hundred heavily armed police who are forcing you out of your car and photographing you.
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In terms of the Abel Smith St thing, even the tenants said they were treated with respect by the police. ANd the TV3 film showed it was a low key affair.
Doesn't that kind of prove the point the people of Tuhoe are making? When the police raided the house of Pakeha activists in Wellington looking for weapons its a respectful, low key affair involving a handful of unarmed cops in uniform. But they went into Ruatoki with several hundred armed officers, sealed off the town and photographed everyone they could find. Doesn't the double standard leap out at you there?
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I'm wondering what the chances are for a fair trial on the Arms Act charges after all this.
The Prime Minister has already given the defense reasonably good grounds for a mistrial.
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Well what Broad said on Morning Report this morning, was that within two hours of the warrants being served, the media were all over them, so he called a media conference to address it.
They did dress up as stormtroopers and seal off an entire town - that's always likely to attract a wee bit of curiosity from the press.