That evidence was given yesterday afternoon at a court-martial at Auckland\u2019s Devonport Naval Base, where the serviceman is defending the charge.<\/p>\n
The court-martial continues today with more witnesses.<\/p>\n
The allegation<\/p>\n
The court-martial heard from the interpreter that in 2013 the \u201cKiwi base\u201d he was working on was being shut down as New Zealand was pulling out of Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
The Afghan interpreter had accepted an offer from the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) to relocate to New Zealand to protect him from the rising Taliban influence in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
He was single at the time of his immigration interview. He quickly married but was denied bringing his new wife to New Zealand by the NZDF.<\/p>\n
Frustrated, he indicated to the accused NZDF member he planned to make a plea for his wife to the Minister of Defence, who was set to visit the base.<\/p>\n
The interpreter claims the NZDF member then threatened to have him killed.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe said, \u2018If you try to speak to the Minister of Defence, we will talk to your Government to blacklist you and have you killed\u2019,\u201d he recalled. \u201c\u2018And you and your family can\u2019t do anything about it\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
Capable of having someone killed<\/p>\n
Steele asked the interpreter if he thought the NZDF member was capable of having him killed.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid you think that was something he was capable of, a man of his position, blacklisting you and having you killed?\u201d<\/p>\n
The interpreter responded yes, explaining that before the threat, the interpreter had been involved in NZDF missions leading to the capture of Taliban leaders.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was also involved in releasing them without any consequences,\u201d he claimed.<\/p>\n
After the threat, the interpreter said the accused told him to leave the base for four days – a period of time he suspected was made so he would miss a visit from the minister.<\/p>\n
Dazed, the interpreter wandered back to the interpreters\u2019 barracks when the accused again came up to him.<\/p>\n
Out in the open<\/p>\n
\u201cHe approached me from behind saying \u2018You need to pack your stuff to leave now\u2019,\u201d the interpreter alleged.<\/p>\n
The interpreter was not a native to Bamiyan, but had some friends with whom he could stay in the province.<\/p>\n
Steele highlighted that the \u201csecurity situation\u201d was heightened at the time, and living off base meant the interpreter was less protected.<\/p>\n
When the interpreter returned to the base, he said things carried on as if nothing had happened and around Anzac Day he began his journey to New Zealand without his wife.<\/p>\n
The defence<\/p>\n
The interpreter reported that he managed to bring his wife over about a year after he arrived in New Zealand.<\/p>\n
He claimed to have confided in no one about the threat to his life out of fear.<\/p>\n
During that time in New Zealand, he said all the interpreters were trying to bring more of their family members over from Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
It was only then, when his wife began questioning why they couldn\u2019t bring her family over, that he told her about the threat.<\/p>\n
Defence lawyer Matthew Hague suggested the interpreter had made up the threat to get his wife off his back.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a lie that you made up because you were under pressure from your wife, wasn\u2019t it?\u201d Hague asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, sir, it was not,\u201d the interpreter replied.<\/p>\n
\u2018Adjusted, agitated and unusable\u2019<\/p>\n
This morning, Steele read out a Military Police statement from the accused from three years ago.<\/p>\n
The statement said the interpreter was booted off the base for four days because his work ethic had deteriorated.<\/p>\n
It said after learning that his wife couldn\u2019t immigrate, the interpreter had become adjusted, agitated and \u201cunusable\u201d in his role.<\/p>\n
The interpreter did not \u201ctake kindly\u201d to being kicked off the base and saw it as a \u201cpunishment\u201d.<\/p>\n
At no time did he use threatening behaviour against [the complainant], the accused\u2019s statement said.<\/p>\n
The wife<\/p>\n
The interpreter\u2019s wife took the stand this afternoon, assisted by an interpreter.<\/p>\n
She told the court about eventually immigrating to New Zealand in 2014. <\/p>\n
She said it was only a few years later, in 2017, when she was trying to get her own family over, that the interpreter told her about the alleged threat on his life. <\/p>\n
\u201cI put to him lots of questions, I ask him why he didn\u2019t bring me with him,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
That is when he mentioned the threat, she said.<\/p>\n
Again, Hague suggested the interpreter had lied to stop his wife from hassling him about bringing her family over. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou were both under lots of stress about the situation, weren\u2019t you?\u201d Hague asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes,\u201d the interpreter\u2019s wife replied.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was so upsetting that your marriage was about to fall apart,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, because we are a culture of family together,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201c[The interpreter] did not tell you his claim about a threat was a lie, did he?\u201d Hague challenged.<\/p>\n
\u201cAli is not a liar,\u201d she stated.<\/p>\n
She claimed she wouldn\u2019t be upset if her husband told her he was lying.<\/p>\n
Then the panel of military members, similar to a jury, had some questions for the interpreter\u2019s wife.<\/p>\n
Final questions<\/p>\n
A military member asked if the interpreter\u2019s wife knew why her husband made a complaint some 10 years after the threat was made.<\/p>\n
She said her husband was after justice and if he hadn\u2019t done anything about it, she would have.<\/p>\n
Hague interjected.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you saying that you told [the interpreter] if you don\u2019t seek justice I will?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the beginning [he] was too frightened to talk about this issue,\u201d she replied.<\/p>\n
She had helped him in doing so, she said.<\/p>\n
The court-martial continues. <\/p>\n
Ella Scott-Fleming has been a journalist for three years and previously worked at the Otago Daily Times, Gore Ensign and Metro Magazine. She has an interest in court and general reporting. She\u2019s based in Auckland covering justice-related stories.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"That evidence was given yesterday afternoon at a court-martial at Auckland\u2019s Devonport Naval Base, where the serviceman is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":423481,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[104438,16942,82716,10712,33658,94458,1403,5760,305,1360,16718,11946,83805,3375,194,1329,111,43,139,69,111462,1118,312,217295,6642,18937,80],"class_list":["post-423480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-afghan","tag-afghanistan","tag-capable","tag-claiming","tag-connections","tag-courtmartial","tag-defence","tag-force","tag-have","tag-having","tag-him","tag-influence","tag-interpreter","tag-killed","tag-kiwi","tag-member","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-nzdf","tag-of","tag-says","tag-serviceman","tag-tells","tag-threatened","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423480\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/423481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}