Army denials led to defamation claim
War reporter Jon Stephenson says he repeatedly offered to answer Defence Force questions about going to a highsecurity military base in Afghanistan.
After Mr Stephenson wrote two articles mentioning his visit, Defence Force chief Lieutenant General Rhys Jones issued a press release saying, among other things, that Mr Stephenson had been denied entry to the base and that the base commander denied speaking with him in April 2010.
Mr Stephenson says he has been defamed and the words in the press release mean he was lying or was unreliable.
General Jones and the Defence Force are defending the defamation claim being heard in the High Court at Wellington.
In evidence yesterday, Mr Stephenson said he wrote to General Jones several times, confirming the details in the article, offering to answer questions and share information he had not written about because of security concerns.
He even offered his original notes, made on paper the commander supplied so could be expected to have the commander’s fingerprints, he said. His offers were not accepted. He told a jury of seven men and five women that he had not expected to be allowed on to the Crisis Response Unit base but thought that he had to try.
On his second attempt, he gained access and spent about 30 minutes with the base commander.
As he was leaving he saw a bearded Maori man in what looked like New Zealand SAS camouflage, who he was ‘‘fairly confident’’ gave him a dirty look but kept walking.
Seeing someone he thought was SAS was exciting because it confirmed its involvement at the Crisis Response Unit, but it made him worry that the inter- view notes he had just made might be taken.
He wrote about visiting the base in a Sunday Star-Times article the following month.
It was also mentioned in passing nearly a year later in a much longer article in Metro magazine that examined whether people the SAS detained in Afghanistan were handed over to other forces known to use torture.
Mr Stephenson’s lawyer, Davey Salmon, said it now seemed the Defence Force and General Jones no longer stood by the statement that Mr Stephenson was denied entry to the base.
However, the press release General Jones issued in May 2011 was still on the Defence Force website, Mr Salmon said.
The hearing is expected to end early next week.