By Hamish Stuart of NZPA

Wellington, March 10 NZPA - A Christian farmer and part-time teacher who attacked a government spy base in Marlborough last year said he and two colleagues carried out the action after two decades of protest against the base had proved fruitless.

Adrian Leason, from Otaki, is accused with Peter Murnane and Sam Land of slashing the inflatable dome covering the satellite dishes and cutting fences around the Marlborough facility operated by the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) last April.

During prosecutor Glen Marshall's cross-examination in the Wellington District Court today, Leason said the men decided to attack the Waihopai base after two decades' worth of petitions, letters to politicians and editors and protests had failed to have any obvious impact.

Leason said he did not know what information government agents were collecting at the GCSB facility.

"A good democracy needs to have transparency and accountability. This is one glaringly large area of the New Zealand Government where there is no accountability," he said.

Leason told the court earlier how images from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and protest actions by the bible-inspired pacifist Ploughshares movement influenced his decision to attack the base.

The Ploughshares group had no fixed members, with individuals only coming together to carry out specific actions -- usually involving "disarming" a weapon of war.

Particularly inspiring was an action carried out in 1991 in the United States, in which Ploughshares members, including New Zealander Moana Cole, attacked an American B-52 bomber with hammers. The activists damaged the aeroplane enough to prevent its participation in the Iraq war, Leason said.

"Intelligence gathering is a weapon system. Waihopai is a part of a weapon system used to harm people," he told the court.

Leason's career, farm and family depended on him being found not guilty, with the group justifying the attack in the belief it would protect the life of another person.

"My teaching career is on the line. My farm is on the line -- if I am proven wrong, I will lose my job and not be able to pay my mortgage," he said.

Leason expanded on the purpose of the group's foray into the base as co-defendant Murnane, who represented himself, questioned him.

"We came to the conclusion it is not our job to disarm the entire US military-industrial complex. Our job was to save one life of one person, if only by disabling this dome for one day," he said.

After cutting through apparently alarmed, electric fences without setting off any audible alarms or getting electrocuted, the men reached one of the domes. Placing their hands on its plastic surface, they said "we disarm you in the name of Jesus Christ", before slashing into the structure with sickles.

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