Last Week’s Story Of The Week

Police Apologise Over Zaoui/FIS/Terror Link Mistake - Police have apologised to the Prime Minister that they went too far in making statements that the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) had ties to Al Qaeda. See… Police concur they went too far with terror link
ALSO:
- Scoop Report - PM Clarifies Zaoui/FIS/Terror Confusion
See also...STORY OF THE WEEK: Ahmed Zaoui (1)

PS: Questions To The Prime Minister

Last week Scoop issued a series of questions to the Prime Minister over the Police’s claims that the FIS was a terror organisation.

First of the questions was: Will the PM be withdrawing her media statement claiming the FIS is a terrorist organisation? If not, why not?

Today the Prime Minister, via her Office, answered: "The statement made by the Prime Minister was drafted by the Police. Following media coverage, the Police checked the matter again. On their advice, the part of the statement linking the FIS to terrorist organisations has been withdrawn."

Other questions included:

1 - What contact has the New Zealand Government or its ministries or the Police had with the United Nations subsequent to the Sept 13th terrorist listing?

2 - What was the substance of exchanges between NZ and the UN over listing the FIS as a terrorist organisation and having links to al Qaeda?

3 - Did the NZ Police information on the FIS lead to the UN listing the FIS as a terrorist organisation? Or did the UN state in its communications to the NZ Police (with respect to the terrorist listing document) that the FIS was or is a terrorist organisation?

4 - What dialogue has the NZ Government, its ministries departments or the Police had with the current Algerian government as to what its position is on the FIS?

5 - What dialogue has the PM, the Govt, departments, ministries or police had with Prof. George Joffe, or Samir Bennegadi over her statement indicating the Govt identifies the FIS as a terrorist organisation? What was the substance of this dialogue?

The Prime Minister’s Office replied: “The PM has said she is not prepared to comment in detail on security matters.”

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