Court lifts secrecy in alleged Australian espionage trial

By ROD McGUIRK
Associated Press

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A court has agreed to lift a shroud of secrecy from the trial of a spy’s lawyer that could potentially confirm that Australia bugged East Timor’s government during multibillion-dollar oil and gas negotiations. The Australian government has refused to comment on allegations that the spy, known to the public as Witness K, led an Australian Secret Intelligence Service operation that bugged government offices in the East Timorese capital in 2004 to give Australia an unfair advantage during negotiations on the sharing of oil and gas revenue from the seabed that separates the two countries. K’s lawyer, Bernard Collaery, is charged with conspiring with K to communicate information to East Timor about ASIS’s functions.