A military court found a New Zealand soldier guilty of attempted espionage for a foreign power on Monday – the first spying conviction in the country’s history.
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The soldier was caught offering to pass military base maps and photographs to an undercover officer posing as an agent for the third country, the court martial heard.
The man’s name, the country he attempted to spy for and the name of the undercover officer who caught him were all suppressed by the court.
He was the first person to be convicted of spying by a New Zealand court and only the second to be tried after a former public servant was acquitted of espionage in 1975.
The soldier admitted to attempted espionage, accessing a computer system for a dishonest purpose, and knowingly possessing an objectionable publication.
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He had copies of a live-streamed video of the March 2019 killing of 51 worshippers at mosques around Christchurch by white supremacist Brenton Tarrant.
