Source: Radio New Zealand
A court martial continued on Tuesday at the Devonport Naval Base in Auckland. RNZ / Kim Baker Wilson
A Navy officer accused of threatening to kill an Afghan interpreter in 2013 has denied making any threat.
A court martial continued on Tuesday at the Devonport Naval Base in Auckland.
The court heard evidence from the complainant on Monday, who alleged the officer had threatened to have him blacklisted and killed if he attempted to contact the Minister of Defence over an immigration issue.
The accused officer was working as a delegate to help the roughly 30 interpreters through the immigration process as the New Zealand Defence Force dismantled its base in Afghanistan.
A formal statement written by the accused in 2024 was read for the court on Tuesday denying the allegation.
“I did not threaten him. I had frequent conversations with him; I do not recall and did not have any conversations with him in a threatening manner,” it read.
The complainant, who was working as an interpreter at Kiwi Base in Banyam, Afghanistan in 2013, had been offered permanent residency because the NZDF was pulling out of the conflict.
He had applied for residency as a single man but had an arranged marriage shortly afterwards and was trying to bring his new wife to New Zealand with him.
During the complainant’s evidence, he said he had received verbal acknowledgement that his marriage “should be fine”.
However, the accused’s statement indicated the complainant’s marriage came as a surprise.
“Initially [he] wasn’t married when he applied and there was no intent from him to get married during the process,” the accused’s 2024 statement said.
“To my understanding [he] came back and said he was married, however he didn’t provide any proof to myself, and he did this close to the departure time.”
The accused had said the complainant’s behaviour changed after his wife was denied residency.
“[He] was emotionally upset by the decision and over time became adjusted and agitated, and also unusable [in his role as an interpreter] as his only focus was on trying to change the decision,” the statement continued.
The complainant on Monday testified that he became aware the Minister of Defence was planning to visit the base and had written a letter to appeal for his wife to be granted residency.
The accused’s statement noted the complainant was asked not to come into work during the visit.
“[He] was asked not to come into work the day before the delegates arrived, I know [he] wanted to communicate with the Minister of Defence and also the Minister of Immigration,” the accused said.
“I do remember speaking to [him] and telling him he can’t speak to MoD, after I told him ‘no’ he was upset.”
The accused said he did not speak in a threatening way, and on Monday pleaded not guilty.
Another officer who was at Kiwi Base in 2013 and worked with interpreters, Warrant Officer Tyrone Howard, gave further evidence about the stresses involved in handling the immigration concerns.
He said the process was “frustrating, confusing, time consuming, but necessary”.
“In my mind we had to provide that opportunity, because it is a lot changing for them and they did serve our country very well over 10 years,” he said.
“But it did sometimes become frustrating with repetitive questions.”
Howard said the rules from Immigration were clear that residency would only be offered to interpreters and their immediate family members at the time the policy was enacted.
“There were a lot of back-and-forth requests and lot of denials because we couldn’t change what Immigration had given us to work with,” Howard recalled.
Though he didn’t remember the complainant specifically, he recalled that one of the interpreters had gotten married after applying for residency.
“There was a request to get married, and I remember the party line was ‘no he can’t’. We didn’t want other people to run away and get married and bring other people over.”
The complainant’s wife, whose identity is also suppressed, was the last witness to be called by the prosecution.
Via an interpreter, she told the court that she had been allowed to come to New Zealand in May of 2014 on a visitor’s visa and was eventually able to stay permanently.
She said the year-long delay between her husband’s move to New Zealand and her own had put a strain on their relationship.
“We reached the point we were going to, in fact, separate because it took a long time for him to take me to New Zealand,” she said.
Some years later, she recalled asking her husband to help her family move to New Zealand, too.
“I told [him] I would like to request to bring my family members here as well … But he said he was not certain he could do this for us,” she said.
“He said he had tried very hard to include me [when he first migrated] but in the end, he was threatened. That was the first time I heard [about the threat].”
“I saw the fact he was too scared, I could see it on his face, and he told me to keep this conversation very secret.”
The accused officer was the first witness to be called by the defence.
He said the complaint, made more than a decade after the alleged incident, had wounded him.
“I put an incredible amount of energy in supporting the repatriation of these personnel, more than I have for anything else in my life. When we arrived at Whenuapai Air Base I got home and collapsed,” he said.
“To have this allegation tabled against me, it cut very deep. Especially because I helped him more so than any of the other interpreters.”
The accused said the complainant was “very persistent” and would approach him at every opportunity, despite the accused repeating that he had no influence on the decision.
“I explained to him again, ‘you’re thinking way too highly of me… There’s a pyramid of hierarchy and I am at the bottom’,” he said.
“There’s the bottom of the pyramid, and then there was me. I was a naval [officer] on a land mission.”
He denied ever making the threat.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand