The former head of the Defence Intelligence Organisation falsely claimed he did not know the flow of intelligence to Australian troops in East Timor had been deliberately cut, the ACT Supreme Court was told yesterday.

The barrister representing ACP Publishing, Bruce McClintock, SC, said Frank Lewincamp's statutory declaration that he was unaware the cut had been deliberate was false because he had actually known within hours.

The declaration was prepared for an investigation carried out in 2000 by the then inspector-general of intelligence and security, Bill Blick. Mr McClintock said Mr Blick, whose inquiry took two years to complete, did "a disgracefully bad job". He had accepted the organisation's false version of events.

It took his successor, Ian Carnell, considerably less time to discover the truth: that the cut had been deliberate and had been made by one of the organisation's officers.

Mr Lewincamp, still a senior defence official, is suing the publisher over two articles that appeared in The Bulletin magazine in April 2004. Among other claims, he asserts the articles falsely imply that he ordered the cut to intelligence to the Australian-led Interfet force in late 1999.

He claims the article implied he did so because of his personal animosity towards the force's chief intelligence officer, Lieutenant Colonel Lance Collins, and, by doing so, put the lives of Australian troops at risk. Colonel Collins, who has come to be seen as a whistleblower and has since left the army, attended yesterday's ninth and final day of the hearing.

Navy reservist lawyer Captain Martin Toohey, a former ACT courts administrator, attended every day of the hearing.

Captain Toohey investigated Colonel Collins's grievances against the army and the Defence Intelligence Organisation and upheld his positions on a number of key issues.

Almost all of his confidential report was published by The Bulletin. Mr Lewincamp is also suing Captain Toohey.

Mr McClintock said The Bulletin had been under a duty to publish the Toohey report, whether its conclusions had been correct or not, because it related to a matter of critical public importance. At the conclusion of yesterday's proceedings, Adelaide-based Justice Anthony Besanko reserved his decision.