AFP warned of legal risks before underworld figure’s deportation

The Australian Federal Police asked Turkish officials to consider removing wanted underworld figure Masood Zakaria from Turkey despite warnings that any involvement in a foreign country’s deportation decision could jeopardise future criminal prosecutions.

The NSW Supreme Court on Friday heard that Detective Sergeant Scott Murphy, a senior officer in the AFP’s Ankara post, in September 2022 requested Turkish National Police weigh up options including removing the accused killer from Turkey, where he had been living after allegedly fleeing Australia in late 2021.

Zakaria, an alleged high-ranking member of Sydney’s Alameddine crime family, was arrested four months later at a seaside villa in Bodrum, on Turkey’s south-west coast, alongside several Australians and foreign nationals accused of criminal activity in their home countries.

At the time of Murphy’s request, the AFP had been warned by federal government lawyers that involvement in a foreign country’s decision to deport an individual to face criminal charges in Australia could constitute an abuse of process. The warnings related to the removal of another high-profile law enforcement target, who cannot be legally identified, from Turkey in similar circumstances to Zakaria.

“By October 2022, you had decided you would be willing to act unlawfully if it meant getting Zakaria back to NSW,” Zakaria’s barrister, Murugan Thangaraj, SC, said. Murphy denies any unlawful actions.

Zakaria’s legal team is seeking a permanent stay of proceedings against him after alleging AFP officers abused process by facilitating his illegal deportation from Turkey in a recovery operation akin to a kidnapping. The AFP maintains its actions were lawful and denies any involvement in Zakaria’s deportation.

If Zakaria’s application is successful, the charges against him, including for the murders of father and son Toufik Hamze, 64, and Salim Hamze, 18, and a conspiracy to murder gangland rival Ibrahem Hamze at the height of an underworld feud in 2021, will not be prosecuted.

Trials for those offences were last year vacated after Zakaria’s lawyers levelled the allegations at the AFP. Prosecutors last week conceded that Zakaria’s deportation was not permitted under Turkish law because of his pending appeal against the country’s decision to deport him. Zakaria’s appeal was not dismissed until February 2024 – two months after his deportation.

In late 2022 – weeks before Zakaria’s arrest – Murphy told NSW Police counterparts of his intention to have Zakaria “blacklisted” and removed from Turkey because his activities meant he posed too high a risk to continue residing there.

Murphy earlier told NSW detectives pursuing Zakaria before he left Australia that the AFP could push Turkish authorities to detain the alleged kingpin on immigration matters and remove or deport him on character grounds, according to an email read in court.

NSW detectives raised concerns about providing Zakaria’s passport, which was being held at a Sydney police station, to AFP officers in Ankara who said they were seeking the document to facilitate his eventual deportation.

Shortly after Zakaria’s arrest in early 2023, Ankara-based officers told Superintendent Jared Taggart, the then-acting commander of the agency’s transnational operations, that Turkish organised crime investigators had acted on intelligence provided at a meeting less than a fortnight earlier.

At the meeting, Murphy and his superior, Detective Superintendent Marie Andersson, shared intelligence with investigators, who later deemed Zakaria a high-priority target, according to documents tendered to court.

“They determined that Zakaria needed to be targeted and removed from the country,” Andersson wrote in an email sent after Zakaria’s arrest and read in court on Friday.

Murphy, Taggart, Andersson and several other senior AFP officers, including Commissioner Krissy Barrett, have agreed to be cross-examined by Zakaria’s lawyers after being guaranteed immunity from any potential prosecution arising from their evidence. Several senior NSW Police officers sought the same protections before testifying.

Lawyers for the AFP unsuccessfully sought to have several senior officers, including Barrett, excused from giving evidence in court. Court orders prohibit sections of the officers’ evidence, as well as the manner in which it is given, from being published.

Taggart several times tried to avoid being photographed arriving and leaving Sydney’s King Street court complex, where he was cross-examined for several days.

Zakaria’s unprecedented legal challenge has cast doubt on the prosecutions of several other individuals wanted by Australian authorities and returned to the country in similar circumstances. The individuals, who cannot legally be identified, were among the highest value targets for law enforcement agencies at the time of their deportations.

Those individuals, like Zakaria, were returned to Australia onboard a chartered flight under the watch of ex-military security contractors. The AFP paid more than $1 million for Zakaria’s return, the court has heard.

The hearing before Justice Edward Muston continues.

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