Philip Dorling – Australia's chief intelligence watchdog has been drawn into a legal battle over government claims that Australia's relations with Indonesia are too fragile to allow the release of secret archives about military operations and war crimes in East Timor.

The Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, Vivienne Thom, will testify before the Administrative Appeals Tribunal on whether Australia's relations with Jakarta will be harmed by the release of 120 pages of intelligence assessments relating to East Timor in the early 1980s.

Dr Thom's appearance on Monday will be the first time the inspector-general has been required to appear in a case about declassification of secret intelligence or security archives.

Attorney-General George Brandis has prevented Associate Professor Clinton Fernandes, of the University of NSW, from seeing most of the government's arguments as to why he should be denied access to Australian intelligence reports about a major Indonesian military offensive across East Timor in late 1981 and early 1982.

Dr Fernandes has been engaged in a six-year legal struggle with the National Archives to secure declassification of Australian diplomatic and intelligence records.