SA’s Court of Appeal dismisses Operation Ironside challenge and rules ANOM messages were not illegally intercepted

The state’s highest court has ruled whether Operation Ironside detectives were acting legally when they intercepted messages on the AN0M app.

The state’s highest court has ruled millions of messages used in the country’s largest police sting were not illegally intercepted.

Hundreds of people, from alleged drug dealers, bikies and organised crime figures, were arrested on June 7, 2021, under Operation Ironside, which involved police surveilling users of the AN0M app for illegal activity.

In November last year, The Advertiser revealed South Australia’s Court of Appeal had been asked to rule on the legality of millions of messages sent and received by users of the encrypted app.

The AN0M logo shown on a phone before it was disabled and shut down.

On Thursday, the Court of Appeal ruled the messages taken from AN0M to charge two men charged with firearms offences under Operation Ironside – both of whom can’t be named for legal reasons – were not illegally intercepted, backing up a Supreme Court decision.

In April last year Justice Adam Kimber ruled the Australian Federal Police had not illegally intercepted the messages but had been instead surveilling them.

Justice Kimber referred a question of the law to the Court of Appeal asking the state’s highest court to confirm whether his decisions were correct.

It is expected the matter will now be referred to the High Court in Canberra for appeal.

SA has led the legal challenges to the Ironside arrests after the case of the two men was fast-tracked to the Supreme Court for the challenge to Ironside’s legality.

On Thursday, the two men were observed to be happily chatting over video link, from separate places, before the hearing.

After the decision was handed down one of the men was seen laughing.

Lawyers for the two men – alleged to be senior organised crime figures – had argued the AN0M app was an illegal interception and the AFP were acting unlawfully in monitoring the conversations between their clients and others.

In separate published judgments, Justice Kimber ruled the AFP had not acted improperly during the investigation and also that the accused were not placed at an “unfair disadvantage” by having the messages admitted.

Three years on after the days of the arrests and the app’s shutdown, only 17 people have been sentenced in SA as part of Operation Ironside.

Most of the SA accused remain before the courts – some of whom won’t face trial until 2027.