Japan plans protest over espionage report
Japan plans protest over espionage report
SYDNEY (AFP): The Japanese embassy said yesterday it plans an official protest against an Australian newspaper over a "groundless report" linking Japan with a hi-tech surveillance operation of the Australian embassy in Jakarta.
Citing intelligence sources, yesterday's Sydney Morning Herald said listening devices or evidence of espionage had been uncovered in at least nine Australian diplomatic missions or residences abroad.
The Herald highlighted in its report what it said was a video recording of a Japanese eavesdropping operation against the Australian embassy in Jakarta, before Australia's diplomats moved to a new building in late 1993.
Naota Amaki, a senior official at the Japanese embassy in Canberra, told AFP that the mission will be making a serious protest against the newspaper.
"The allegations are utterly untrue and false," Amaki said.
"The embassy will be writing a letter of complaint and making an official protest against the groundless report," he added.
According to the Herald, Australian counter-espionage experts discovered that someone in the Japanese embassy in Jakarta was directing an infra-red beam on to a window of the Australian embassy 600 meters away.
The newspaper said the purpose of the beam was to detect slight vibrations of the window pane from noise and conversations inside the room.
The beam reflected from the glass could be used to transmit the vibrations back to sensitive processors and filters which could produce a clear reproduction of the conversations, it reported.
Using a special infra-red sensitive lens, the Australian experts noticed that the person inside the Japanese embassy was directing the beam from different windows, but it was always focused on a single window at the Australian embassy, the newspaper said.
Former Australian ambassador to Indonesia Bill Morrison said yesterday he was not surprised that espionage operations were conducted against at least nine Australian diplomatic missions.
"One takes this sort of possibility as granted and acts accordingly," Morrison, who served as the ambassador to Indonesia between 1985 and 1988, as well as in Moscow, told ABC radio.
"One has to assume in any foreign post there is the potential for surveillance and so one doesn't lightly make comments that could be sensitive at any stage."
He did not believe Australian security would have been breached by the Japanese infra-red device.
Asked whether Australia would be involved in similar activities Morrison said: "This is a game that is played, everybody plays it. Presumably some people are better at it than others.
"But it is an assumption of international diplomacy that this sort of thing goes on from all sides."
The Herald reported that other "bugged" embassies or residences were in Beijing, Moscow, Ankara, Breezily, Belgrade, Hanoi, Yangon and Warsaw.