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BRISBANE, Australia () -- After spending weeks trying to get a rain forest activist who spent seven months living in a tree to come down, police posed as a television crew, asked for an interview and then arrested him.
Manfred Stephens had taken up residence in the tree's branches to prevent it from being chopped down to make way for a tourist chairlift in a jungle near Cairns in the far northeast of Australia.
Stephens was charged with possessing a small amount of marijuana but not with occupying the tree.
A police spokesman was unrepentant about the ploy. He told reporters it is legal for police to impersonate journalists but not for journalists to pose as police.
Lured From His Tree
12 January 1995
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