How Australian undercover police ‘fed’ an autistic 13-year-old’s fixation with Islamic State
How Australian undercover police ‘fed’ an autistic 13-year-old’s fixation with Islamic State
Court finds counter-terrorism unit’s conduct fell ‘profoundly short’ of minimum standards expected of law enforcement officers
Counter-terrorism police encouraged an autistic 13-year-old boy in his fixation on Islamic State in an undercover operation after his parents sought help from the authorities.
The boy, given the pseudonym Thomas Carrick, was later charged with terror offences after an undercover officer “fed his fixation” and “doomed” the rehabilitation efforts Thomas and his parents had engaged in, a Victorian children’s court magistrate found.
A reminder: never, ever, call police on someone whose welfare you care about.
As the saying goes: if you have a problem and call the police, you now have two problems.
What the fuck. This is absolutely disgusting. And no mention of any repercussions for the police involved, either. Not that that's a surprise.
Chalk another one up to ACAB.
How are you going to justify all the repressive surveillance, if you don't manufacture some terrorists to catch?
ACAB (All Cops Are Bastards) is an acronym used as a political slogan associated with people who are opposed to the police. It is typically written as a catchphrase in graffiti, tattoos or other imagery in public spaces.
Reminds me of when Riverside Sheriffs busted a special ed student (he had been diagnosed with Aspergers)....and then did it again to another one (who apparently had the cognitive level of a 3rd grader) the next year after having and undercover officer befriend them (along with others) and pressure them into buying or stealing drugs for them. Also, the case is crazy because somehow a minor regardless of having Aspergers can apparently waive their Maranda rights as well as their guardians not be contacted.
Surprised to see the article still using the term Asperger’s. Asperger was a nazi sympathiser and experimented on kids with autism and his name should be relegated to the toilet of history.
Edit: ah, the article is from 2014, so maybe a little less surprising that they used the term.
There's no such thing as Miranda rights in Australia - that's an American law. We do however have "the right to silence", and must be informed of that right by police on arrest so it has a similar effect.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Thomas, an NDIS recipient with an IQ of 71, was first reported to police by Victoria’s Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and then by his parents because of his fixation with Islamic State, which included him accessing extremist material online and making threats to other students.
Fleming found the JCTT also deliberately delayed charging Thomas with offences until after he turned 14, as it made it harder for him to use the defence of doli incapax, which refers to the concept that a child is not criminally responsible for their actions.
“The search involved multiple Victoria Police members under the guise of attending to provide support to the family within the CVE [Countering Violent Extremism] framework.
A police officer who performed a report based on information downloaded from Thomas’s phone found that he appeared fascinated with China and symbols of the Chinese Communist party and that there were no religious images or verses from the Qur’an present.
But the operative gave evidence that Thomas was naive, and living a “fantasy life online”, including by asking questions like whether he could join the kids’ section of Islamic State.
Fleming said the prospect of diverting and rehabilitating Thomas was always destined to fail once the operative started communicating with him, and the magistrate could not accept evidence given by police that these efforts had primacy over the criminal investigation.
The original article contains 1,275 words, the summary contains 229 words. Saved 82%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Wtf were they thinking! `-´
Another easily solved case for my record!
Even worse I can think of two other cases of the Federal Police and ASIO doing similar things:
- Scott Rush, one of the "Bali 9", was imprisoned in Indonesia after a tip-off from the AFP. This followed his parents alerting the AFP in advance and them reassuring the parents that they'd keep him out of trouble - then waiting until the crime had been committed and tipping off the Indonesian police to take the credit.
- Jean-Philippe Wispelaere was a defence intelligence officer with mental illness who was caught selling secrets to Singapore. The "secrets" turned out to be publically available maps - not secret at all - and he hadn't committed any crimes until the sting operation organised by an Australian government organisation and the FBI. He was arrested by the FBI and remains in prison today.
I guess for police it looks good on your resume to have caught a bad guy, and it's easier to track if you're making it all happen in the first place.
The wiki article for the second one paints a very different story.
In January the following year, Wispelaere quit his job and travelled to Bangkok, where he approached the embassy of a foreign country, offering to sell classified material to that country. (The country is reported by some sources to be Singapore). The country notified the United States, and the FBI began to investigate. Posing as agents for a foreign country (allegedly Russia), the FBI met Wispelaere in Bangkok, where he gave them hundreds of sensitive documents in exchange for cash. Later, he mailed more documents to an address in Virginia, also run by the FBI.
Do you have any source of information for your version of events? Would be curious to read more and update the wiki if need be.
Here's one on his lack of mental compentence to testify at his own trial.
Apparently Singapore contacted our intelligence service and ASIO organised the sting with the FBI. Prior to that he had no buyer. That's consistent with the Wikipedia article.
I can't find a reference now for the documents not actually being classified - I remember this from media coverage at the time. I think the story was that they were USGS maps which were subsequently publically available or something like that.
This is utterly disgusting and I hope the officers involved in this appalling abuse of power lose their positions.
It serves as yet another example of why the neurodiverse community should never trust law enforcement.