A senior military officer who was attached to the Australian embassy in Jakarta will stand trial at the Northern Territory Supreme Court on charges of possessing and producing child abuse material.
The man, who cannot be named, was committed to stand trial in Darwin on Wednesday after Magistrate Greg Cavanagh allowed the evidence of three Australian Federal Police officers to remain a key part of the case against him.
His barrister argued that the police misled the man's wife when they visited her Jakarta home and convinced her to allow them to search the house without a warrant, telling her the investigation had nothing to do with her husband or her family.
They were investigating the downloading of child abuse material to an IP address registered to the family's home in Canberra, where several hundred photos and some videos were allegedly found, including photographs that allegedly depicted children known to the man.
Mr Cavanagh said he found the police witnesses to be credible and "didn't discern them to be liars".
"I don't see anything improper in Australian authorities going to a house (in Indonesia) maintained by Australians on the behalf of the Australian government, doing its business, to ask for their co-operation in investigating these matters," he said.
"I don't see that it was an exercise in hoodwinking the defendant's wife, conning, or deliberately telling lies to her."
Police shouldn't have to disclose all the machinations of their operations to a suspect's wife, and their behaviour was not illegal or unfair, Mr Cavanagh said.
The man, who held his wife's hand throughout the proceedings, declined to give any evidence or make any comments on his own behalf.
He will appear before the NT Supreme Court next month.
