On 15 and 16 October 2007, the New Zealand Police conducted a series of armed raids in response to alleged paramilitary training camps in the Urewera mountain range near the town of Ruatoki. About 300 police, including members of the Armed Offenders Squad and Special Tactics Group, were involved in the raids, which involved the execution of search warrants at various addresses throughout New Zealand, and the establishment of roadblocks at Ruatoki and Tāneatua. The police seized four guns and 230 rounds of ammunition and arrested eighteen people. According to police, the raids were a culmination of more than a year of surveillance that uncovered and monitored the training camps.
The police were investigating potential breaches of the Terrorism Suppression Act. On 8 November 2007 the Solicitor-General, David Collins, declined to press charges against any persons under that legislation. Collins later described the legislation as "incoherent and unworkable", and said it was almost impossible to apply to domestic terrorism in New Zealand as it was too complex. According to then Prime Minister Helen Clark, one of the reasons police tried to lay charges under anti-terror legislation was because they could not use telephone interception evidence in prosecutions under the Arms Act.
The raids were highly controversial and their legitimacy was debated by politicians, the media and the public. Hundreds of people participated in protests across New Zealand in the weeks following the raids. Of the eighteen people arrested, just four came to trial in February and March 2012, including Ngāi Tūhoe activist Tāme Iti. The defendants were found guilty on firearms charges. On the more serious charges of belonging to an organised criminal group, the jury was unable to agree. In March 2012, the cost to the taxpayer of the criminal proceedings, including legal aid and prosecution costs, was estimated to be well over NZ$6 million. The cost of the surveillance and the subsequent raids had previously been estimated to be over NZ$8 million.
In May 2013, the Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) published a report of its findings and recommendations following the investigation of complaints by individuals and organisations about police actions during the raids, particularly relating to road blocks and the execution of search warrants. The IPCA concluded that although the planning and preparation for the execution of search warrants was largely in accordance with policy, the planning and preparation for the establishment of road blocks in Ruatoki and Tāneatua was "deficient" and a number of aspects of the police raids were "contrary to law and unreasonable". The police spokesman for the Labour Party, which had been in government at the time of the raids, acknowledged that innocent people had been "unnecessarily frightened and intimidated". In 2014 the Police Commissioner formally apologised to the Ruatoki community and Ngāi Tūhoe for police actions during the raids.
Historical and cultural context
Ngāi Tūhoe had long-held grievances against the Crown, particularly over land seizures beginning in the late nineteenth century. The traditional land of Ngāi Tūhoe is Te Urewera in the eastern North Island, a steep, heavily forested area which includes Lake Waikaremoana. Historian James Belich has described the Urewera as one of the last zones of Māori autonomy, and the scene of the last armed Māori resistance: the 1916 arrest at Maungapohatu of Rua Kenana, a claimed prophet who sought to remove the Tūhoe people from the influence of Pākehā (New Zealand Europeans).
At the time of the raids in October 2007, the Waitangi Tribunal was continuing to consider claims regarding land and self-government within the tribal boundaries, and the words "confiscation line" were painted on the road to mark the geographical boundary between land confiscated by the Crown in the 1860s and land that remained with the Tūhoe people. In 2013 the IPCA found that the police failed to properly take into account this historical and cultural context when planning the operation, and that this failure was unreasonable.
In December 2005, two hunters in the remote Urewera ranges came across a camp where they found armed men, some wearing balaclavas, who appeared to be training. They reported what they had seen to the police, and the camps were put under surveillance. This led to police investigating a group of people in the Urewera area for over 18 months, some of whom had criminal records for assault and firearms offences and others who were known political activists. The investigations were termed "Operation Eight".
One of the people under investigation was Ngāi Tūhoe activist Tāme Iti, who had grown up and lived much of his life in Ruatoki, and who was one of New Zealand's best-known and most controversial activists. In 2005, acting in protest against Crown treatment of Tūhoe, Iti had shot a firearm at an Australian flag (in substitute for a New Zealand flag) during a Waitangi Tribunal hearing at Tauarau Marae. Although Iti was convicted of firearms offences, his conviction was overturned by the Court of Appeal in April 2007, on the basis that there was insufficient evidence "that property was endangered or that any person was endangered, annoyed, or frightened".
During the course of Operation Eight, police lawfully obtained text messages suggesting that paramilitary training camps were being run in remote forest locations in the Urewera mountain ranges. Police further intercepted private communications and gained information they claimed suggested that serious violent offences were about to be committed. The police also obtained covert surveillance footage of the alleged training camps (later held by the Supreme Court to have been improperly obtained in the case Hamed v R). The police's evidence identified that six training camps were held between November 2006 and September 2007, with over 60 people having either been invited to attend or attending at least one camp. The camps appeared to involve the use of weapons, explosives and Molotov cocktails, ambush exercises, patrolling drills and the practice of interrogation techniques. Some evidence also suggested that the group's intention was to form "an independent Tūhoe nation within the Urewera area".
Termination of Operation Eight
The police decided to terminate Operation Eight in October 2007, after legal advice that the evidence obtained could support charges under the Terrorism Suppression Act. The plan was to execute a number of search warrants at 41 addresses (relating to 37 individuals), one business address and eight vehicles, to make a number of arrests and to interview people who had knowledge of or involvement in the alleged training camps. In the application for search warrants police said they believed that the group intended to take control of an area of land in the Urewera area by use of military style semiautomatic firearms and Molotov cocktails. The police were later criticised by the IPCA for not preparing a more structured and detailed warrant application, and for not undertaking a formal documented review and approval process in respect of the final application. The cost of the surveillance and the subsequent raids was estimated to be over NZ$8 million.
The Special Tactics Group, made up of full-time police officers trained to provide tactical response to high risk incidents, were involved in developing a tactical plan for the raids, and in particular the execution of multiple high risk search warrants. They considered and analysed threats posed at the addresses of the principal targets, and identified certain addresses and targets which would require assistance from the Armed Offenders Squad, a unit specially trained to respond to incidents involving firearms or other weapons. The tactical plan also recommended that a roadblock be put in place in Ruatoki during the raids. Police said that this was because of the need to search remote camp locations, intelligence suggesting an unknown local group in the area posed a threat to police, and the possibility of local sympathisers and supporters. The plan recommended that the Armed Offenders Squad stop and search vehicles leaving the area for unlawful weapons, and prevent any vehicles coming into the area until it was safe to do so.