War journalist's defamation case in court

[Dave Homewood]

War journalist's defamation case in court
Last updated 11:26 08/07/2013

PHIL REID/Fairfax NZ

Members of the SAS could be called as witnesses in a defamation case brought against the chief of defence by war journalist Jon Stephenson.

The case is about comments Lieutenant General Jones made in May 2011 in response to articles Mr Stephenson wrote about the handling and treatment taken of prisoners taken by the SAS in Afghanistan.

The case, in the High Court at Wellington, names Mr Stephenson as plaintiff, Mr Jones as the first defendant and the Attorney General sued in respect of the Defence Force as second defendant.

While Mr Stephenson was in the courtroom the closest Mr Jones got to it this morning was to run past the building just before the hearing began at 10am.

Mr Jones’ lawyer, Hugh Rennie, QC, said three SAS members whose names are suppressed, are among a list of nine witnesses for the defendants. However it was open for the defence not to call evidence if it proved unnecessary, Mr Rennie said.

Although a jury of seven men and five women has been chosen, the case proper is not expected to start until this afternoon.

In the meantime, jurors have been asked to read a Sunday Star Times article, an article from Metro Magazine, and the press release that was issued in response to the articles.

The case is expected to end early next week.

[ngatimozart]

I see the jurys hung so they have been dismissed by the judge. Whether it goes to retrial or not is up to the journalist and whether or not the two parties can reach an out of court agreement. CDF has admitted that the journalist had been in the Afgan compound in question and that he may have met the Afghan commander.

Personally I do have a problem if the journalists claim about the SAS willfully handing over prisoners for torture is incorrect. I do remember that this did break back during the Clark Labour Govt days and NZDF said that SAS personnel had raised concerns with NZ command, about prisoners they handed over to certain Afghan units were being tortured, so if I remember correctly, some arrangement was made that they handed their prisoners over to one particular Afghan unit, who were said not to torture prisoners. So if this is what this journalist is talking about, then it has been covered in the media and dealt with. However, if what he claims is alleged to have occurred after the above, then I would like to know much more about the integrity of his source, before I go accusing NZSAS & NZDF in general, of willfully handing over prisoners for torture. That is a very serious allegation and we are, unlike the US, a signatory to the Geneva Convention and our Armed Forces do have a sense of honour and a good idea of what is right and what is wrong.