Soldier with far-right links accused of disclosing military information
Tuesday, 21 January 2020
A New Zealand soldier with far-right links has been accused of accessing military information and sharing it without authorisation.
The New Zealand Defence Force has confirmed the 27-year-old man who was arrested by military police on December 14 faces two charges under the Armed Forces Discipline Act. They include accessing a computer system for a dishonest purpose and unauthorised disclosure of information. It is not known who he supplied the information to.
The man, who has name suppression, is under open arrest but is under Defence Force supervision.
He was taken into custody after the Defence Force and police closed down Linton base and searched his home.
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A source told Stuff at the time that an antique explosive dating back to World War I had been found.
The accused has been in the army since 2014 and was questioned after the March 15 terror attacks.
The man has deep connections with New Zealand's underground far-right movement. He was due to leave the country in before his arrest to spend Christmas in Russia.
At the time, a source said the man's family learned he had been questioned about the terror attack and his connections to far-right groups after his arrest.
The source said the family, who have no affiliation with far-right groups, were horrified by what the events.
'We are just absolutely shocked and as the day goes by they are learning more about what he has been up to online,' the source said.
'His family, his brothers are nothing like this, they are absolutely devastated by what has happened and what information is slowly becoming available to them.
'When I look back, I mean, he really didn't have many friends as a kid - it was heartbreaking. He must have found a group of friends he could relate too? Maybe they were social outcasts as well?'
In December, Defence Minister Ron Mark said he had been briefed, but he would not comment on 'ongoing operations'.
'What I take strength and confidence in is that this has happened, and the military are clearly very observant, doing their job,' he said.
'I'd like to think that any Government department that has the security interests of this nation at heart would be monitoring itself, as well.'
Asked if the soldier was a threat to the country's security, Mark declined to comment.
FAR-RIGHT CONNECTIONS
The arrested soldier's connection to far-rights groups first became apparent days after his December arrest, when members of the group Wargus Christi began talking about a member being arrested in a chatroom on Telegram.
'One of our boys has been arrested for reasons still unknown,' a message from the Wargus Christi group read.
A member of the group said as the soldier was in a military prison, he could not be visited.
Wargus Christi, on its public Facebook page created in September, promotes Christian extremist content, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and far-right internet memes.
The group's founder, Daniel Waring, was in 2010 convicted of smashing windows of Christian church in Feilding. At the time, he described himself as a neo-Nazi to a probation officer.
The soldier has also been connected to the Dominion Movement, a white nationalist group which closed down abruptly after March 15.
Activists who track the far-right online have connected the soldier with an online profile which claimed to be a founder of the group.
The group ascribed to identitarianism, the far-right ideology which appeared to motivate the Christchurch terror suspect.