ABC Four Corners broadcast its latest investigation on Monday evening centred around an alleged former ASIO spy and his alleged secret dealings in the Muslim community.

The program is centred around the allegations of an allegedly disgruntled former spy named ‘Marcus’, tasked with ‘infiltrating’ so-called ‘extremist’ networks in Australia over a six-year period, who has chosen to speak about his experiences now after his offer of permanent residency was revoked.

Away from the specifics of the allegations, which have no value in an anti-terror framework built upon legally sanctioned secrecy, there are important questions this program raises:

  1. Where is the line between entrapment and infiltration drawn? Given entrapment is not a legal offence in this country, and given anti-terror laws give explicit cover for illegal activities undertaken by anti-terror agents in the course of their duties, how confident can we be that agents like ‘Marcus’ are not simply ‘infiltrating’ ‘extremist’ circles, but are in fact responsible for ‘radicalising’ them?
  2. Given there have already been multiple court cases where ASIO agents have been identified as being responsible for encouraging suspects in the commissioning of terror offences, without which the suspect would not have commissioned the offence, how confident can we be that the actions of ASIO agents is designed not to stop terrorism but to encourage it?
  3. Given a significant number of terror cases have involved children with known mental health conditions, how confident can we be that ASIO agents are not targeting the most vulnerable amongst us to facilitate terror offences instead of preventing them?
  4. The alleged experiences of ‘Marcus’ only demonstrate the duplicity with which the entire war on terror policy in this country is operating. Agents like ‘Marcus’ are dispensable, as are his alleged ‘targets’, and indeed an entire community that stands condemned with them. Whole countries have been ravaged, whole regions disrupted, and the whole world made less stable. But none of this matters for Western governments that enact the greatest violence and place the lowest value on human life.

Media Office of Hizb ut-Tahrir In Australia
21 April 2025

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