Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs has used a Senate Estimates hearing to strongly deny suggestions that an Australian aid worker, expelled from Vanuatu last month, was a spy.
A former Perth lawyer, Ari Jenshel, worked in the office of the Attorney-General in Port Vila for five years as part of an Australian aid project.
In 2004, the Howard government threatened to withdraw aid funding to Vanuatu after it expelled Australian Federal Police officers and public servants accused of spying.