Host Selwyn Manning with security analyst Dr Paul Buchanan on this week’s A View From Afar podcast. Video: EveningReport.nz on YouTube
A VIEW FROM AFAR: Podcast with Selwyn Manning and Paul Buchanan
In this week’s security podcast, Dr Paul G. Buchanan and host Selwyn Manning discuss:
- three areas that have been relied on to protect New Zealanders from terror-style attacks;
- legal measures designed to protect communities from danger and even protect individuals from themselves;
- and why they failed.
The background to this episode is the tragic, terrifying, attack that were committed against unarmed innocent people at West Auckland’s LynnMall Countdown supermarket, by Ahamed Aathill Mohamed Samsudeen.
The attack occurred last Friday, 3 September 2021. It ended with the hospitalisation of seven people, and, the death of Samsudeen, who was fatally shot by special tactics police officers during his attempt to kill and injure as many people as he could.
Immediately after, the Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told the nation that the dead man was a terrorist and that she herself, the police, and the courts were all aware of how dangerous he was and had been seeking to protect New Zealand from this man.
Within days of the attacks, we learned, that Samsudeen was a troubled man with psychologists describing him as angry, capable of carrying out his threats, and displaying varying degrees of mental illness and disorder.
Refugee who sought asylum
Samsudeen was a refugee who sought asylum in New Zealand after experiencing, through his formative years civil war and ethnic cleansing in Sri Lanka, who, at around 20 years of age, arrived in New Zealand on a student visa and then sought political asylum.
He was eventually granted refugee status, and since then spent years in prison on various charges and convictions – largely involving the possession of terrorist propaganda seeded on the internet by Islamic State (ISIS), and, threats showing intent to commit terrorist acts against New Zealanders.
In this week’s episode, Dr Buchanan and Manning examine questions about whether this tragedy could have been prevented and considered New Zealand’s:
- Security and terror laws
- Deportation laws involving those with refugee status
- The Mental Health Act and whether this was available to the authorities.
Dr Buchanan and Manning also analyse whether it is necessary for the New Zealand government to move to tighten New Zealand’s terrorism security laws. And, if it does, how the intended new laws compare to other Five Eyes member countries.
- More information about the A View From Afar weekly podcasts on EveningReport.nz
Republished in partnership with EveningReport.nz
