New Zealand ex-official found guilty of hiding camera inside the country's embassy toilet in US for intimate visual recording

                           

Alfred Keating, one of New Zealand’s former top-ranked military officials in the US, has been found guilty of planting a secret camera in a unisex bathroom at the country's embassy in Washington DC.

The 59-year-old faces up to 18 months in prison for attempting to make an intimate visual recording.

According to BBC, Keating's DNA matched traces found on the SD card in the camera, which appeared to have been in place for many months.

He will be sentenced on 25 June.

Keating was serving as a defence attache at New Zealand’s embassy in Washington when a small, covert camera was discovered in a unisex bathroom after it fell out of a hiding spot in a heating duct on 27 July 2017.

It was reported that the motion-activated camera was positioned to capture intimate video recordings of anyone using the toilet.

Crown prosecutor Henry Steele told the court that investigators began to suspect Keating after examining the buildings swipe card records, the New Zealand Herald reported.

CCTV footage also showed a man wearing dark trousers, a white shirt and a black Fitbit watch entering the toilets at around the same time the hidden camera was activated by a hand wearing a blue latex glove.

The police investigation found the device had been in place for some months, because the homemade platform it was mounted on in the bathroom was covered in a thick layer of dust.