Lawyers for a Jakarta-based senior Australian military officer accused of child porn offences say police lied to him and his wife in order to conduct searches without a warrant.

The man, who cannot be named, was attached to the Australian embassy in Jakarta.

He has been charged with 11 counts of producing child abuse material and three counts of possession. Some of the material allegedly depicts children he knows.

Police did not request their Indonesian counterparts to search the man’s Jakarta home in order to avoid a diplomatic drama, his lawyer Jack Pappas said at a committal hearing in Darwin on Tuesday.

‘‘You would rather have him prosecuted here without all the ugly publicity that would accompany [the case] overseas,’’ he told Australian Federal Police Officer Peter Mellor.