{"id":20419,"date":"2020-07-12T05:00:21","date_gmt":"2020-07-11T20:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/jul\/12\/witness-k-and-the-australian-spying-operation-that-continues-to-betray-timor-leste"},"modified":"2020-07-12T05:00:21","modified_gmt":"2020-07-11T20:00:21","slug":"witness-k-and-the-australian-spying-operation-that-continues-to-betray-timor-leste","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=20419","title":{"rendered":"Witness K and the Australian spying operation that continues to betray Timor-Leste"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Charges against Bernard Collaery and his retired Asis agent client confirm the government has few regrets about an exploitative exercise against a friendly neighbour<\/p>\n<p>In the first week of January 2019, a private jet landed at Presidente Nicolau Lobato International Airport in Dili, the capital of Timor-Leste. The former Victorian premier Steve Bracks emerged into the monsoonal heat and was greeted by staff from the office of Xanana Gusm\u00e3o, Timor-Leste\u2019s chief maritime boundary negotiator. They drove Bracks to the waterfront caf\u00e9 at the Novo Turismo Resort and Spa, where Gusm\u00e3o was waiting.<\/p>\n<p>The subject of the meeting was Bernard Collaery, Gusm\u00e3o\u2019s former lawyer, who was pleading not guilty to breaches of Australia\u2019s intelligence act. Collaery\u2019s charges related to an Australian Secret Intelligence Service operation in Dili in 2004, in which Canberra is believed to have recorded Timor-Leste officials\u2019 private discussions about maritime boundary negotiations with Australia. In 2013, the Australian government revealed the allegations of spying.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/jul\/12\/witness-k-and-the-australian-spying-operation-that-continues-to-betray-timor-leste\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Charges against Bernard Collaery and his retired Asis agent client confirm the government has few regrets about an exploitative exercise against a friendly neighbourIn the first week of January 2019, a private jet landed at Presidente Nicolau Lobato In&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1443,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,43,645,324,664,1537],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-australia-news","category-australian-foreign-policy","category-australian-politics","category-timor-leste","category-witness-k-case"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1443"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20419"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20419\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20420,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20419\/revisions\/20420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}