Six Bailed In Aftermath Of "Terror" Decision

Another six people from the recent police raids across the country were granted bail today.

Starting with Whiri Andrew Kemara at the Auckland District Court earlier today. Police prosecution did not oppose his bail, and after a quick appearance it was granted.

Later in the day five more appeared at the Auckland High Court.

The public gallery filled with smiling and joking friends and family of some of the people arrested in last month's police raids across the country.

They were happy in the knowledge that terror charges would not be laid against any of the arrested and that Kemara had already been granted bail.

Yesterday afternoon the Solicitor-General David Collins announced that he would not allow terrorism charges to be laid against those arrested in the raids of October 15.

Emily Bailey, Valerie Morse, Omar Hamed, and another appeared in front of Justice Mark Cooper and all appeared to be in good spirits with the knowledge that police prosecution was not opposing their bail.

There was considerable discussion before the judge about non-association orders, and at one point the crown read out some more intercepted communication evidence in support of their argument that Valerie Morse and Emily Bailey should be prevented from communicating with each other.

The lawyers unsuccessfully argued that this evidence should not be read out in front of the court given that it is not admissible against the defendants.

The lawyers from Morse and Bailey said that as they had been sharing cells in prison for the past few weeks and they were good friends, non-association orders were pointless.

The argument was that if they were going to say anything sensitive to each other surely it would have been said already. However this argument was unsuccessful.

More successful were arguments that the Bailey siblings, Emily, Rongomai and Ira - all of whom face arms charges - ought to be able to communicate with each other. In addition to talking to each other these three will be also be allowed to talk to the 23-year-old Swiss national who has name suppression.

When it was announced that all four would be receiving bail the public gallery exploded into cheers applauding the decision, to then get a telling off by Justice Cooper who announced that it was not a public meeting.

Next was the well known Maori sovereignty advocate Tame Iti who was well supported by his whanau.

Iti also received bail and afterwards a Tuhoe Kaumatua stood and spoke to the judge in Te Reo.

After the bail hearings a large crowd of supporters and media gathered outside waiting for the recently accused to be released.

As each member left the courthouse crowds again erupted into applause and fog horns were sounded.

As Iti left the courthouse he promptly got into a car driven by his son Toi while another supporter did a haka on the road.

ENDS

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