December 11, 2008
POLICE have been forced to apologise for mounting an anti-terrorism exercise in which a forest campaigner hijacked an aircraft and threatened to crash it into a pulp mill in Tasmania.
Heavily armed police responded to the "hijack" at Devonport Airport, and a threat to the nearby Wesley Vale mill in the exercise on Tuesday.
It came at a time of deep community division over plans for the $2.2 billion Gunns pulp mill in the Tamar Valley, and followed a recent incident in which forest protesters' vehicles were beaten with a sledgehammer and firebombed.
Wilderness Society campaigner Vica Bayley said forest campaigners had shown absolute adherence to the concepts of peaceful community protest.
Tasmania Police acting Assistant Commissioner Steve Bonde apologised to those offended by the scenario.
"We deliberately draw up a scenario unconnected with events in history, unconnected with current events, or what police expect in the future," he said.
ANDREW DARBY
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