The stitch-up

Last December, Xanana Gusmao, the prime minister of Timor-Leste, was on an official visit to the world's newest nation of South Sudan when he received an urgent call from Dili. Officers from the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation and the Australian Federal Police had just taken files and computers from the Canberra office of Bernard Collaery, one of the lawyers advising Timor-Leste in a dispute with Australia over a treaty that divided the spoils of the $40 billion Greater Sunrise oil and gas field.