Australian spies raid home of East Timor lawyer

CANBERRA, Australia — Australia's secret service has raided the home of a Canberra lawyer who intends to allege in an international court in The Hague that Australia bugged the East Timorese Cabinet ahead of sensitive oil and gas revenue-sharing negotiations.

East Timor will go before the Permanent Court of Arbitration on Thursday and use the alleged espionage to challenge the validity of a bilateral agreement struck with Australia in 2006 over sharing seabed oil and gas reserves between the countries.

Australian Attorney General George Brandis confirmed that he had authorized search warrants that were executed by the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, the main national secret service, in Canberra on Tuesday. Documents were seized.

Lawyer Bernard Colleary, who will represent East Timor in The Hague, has confirmed that his home was raided. Brandis's office did not confirm or deny media reports that the home of an unnamed former spy was also raided.

Brandis also did not comment on an Australian Broadcasting Corp. report that the former spy's passport had been confiscated, preventing him from giving evidence in The Hague.

Brandis said the raids were not conducted to help Australia fight the court case.

"The warrants were issued by me on the grounds that the documents (seized) contained intelligence related to security matters," Brandis said in a statement.

"I have instructed ASIO that the material taken into possession is not under any circumstances to be communicated to those conducting those proceedings on behalf of Australia," he added.

Colleary said the case would proceed without the spy witness, who had been employed by the shadowy Australian Secret Intelligence Service. ASIS spies operate out of Australian embassies around the world.

"This is an attempt to intimidate our witness and to prevent the evidence going forward at The Hague," Colleary told ABC from Amsterdam.

"I can't think of anything more crass than what has occurred," he added.

Colleary said the former spy alleged a team of ASIS technicians inserted listening devices into walls of Cabinet offices that were constructed and renovated in the East Timorese capital Dili under an Australian aid program in 2004.

East Timor's Ambassador to Australia, Abel Guterres, said he was awaiting a statement from his Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao before commenting.