Lawyers in Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide move to subpoena the source code for the encrypted AN0M app

Lawyers representing alleged bikie chiefs, mafia members and drug kingpins are mounting legal challenges to the software at the heart of Operation Ironside – the encrypted AN0M app.

Adelaide lawyers are mounting legal challenges to the software at the heart of the international crime sting Operation Ironside, which used the encrypted AN0M platform to intercept millions of messages before the app was shut down in June last year.

If successful, the legal move threatens to derail more than 100 cases before South Australian courts, as well as others interstate.

Defence counsel for South Australians arrested as part of the operation are leading the way, along with colleagues in Sydney and Melbourne, to subpoena the source code behind the encrypted app.

The lawyers argue that there is no way a court could be satisfied that what police said were decrypted messages from the app matched what had been typed in.

The Australian Federal Police and the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions (CDPP) are fighting to prevent the release of the source code – invoking immunity and arguing it would not be in the public interest.

It is the latest in a string of legal manoeuvres aimed at discrediting millions of intercepted messages, which police allege show conspiracies to murder as well as the trafficking of vast quantities of drugs.

In South Australia, a challenge to the validity of the warrants used to intercept the messages is expected to be heard by the Supreme Court later this year.

In NSW, top appeals silk Bret Walker SC has been retained by a consortium of around 30 Operation Ironside accused who are also seeking to challenge the warrants.

Those challenges are aimed at the admissibility of large collections of messages which might have been intercepted unlawfully.

However, the latest tactic is aimed at the very origin of the messages – the AN0M platform itself.

It is understood the source code is likely to not even be in Australia, but rather be in the possession of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the US.

Last week, Adelaide lawyer Dominic Agresta told the Adelaide Magistrates Court he would be seeking to challenge the legality and functioning of the AN0M platform.

Mr Agresta represents several Ironside accused whose charges range from conspiracy to commit murder, to the trafficking of huge quantities of cannabis and methamphetamine, both in South Australia and interstate.

Representing one of his clients, whose name is suppressed, Mr Agresta asked the court for a temporary stay of the prosecution and for the man to be released on bail because of the federal authorities refusal to hand over various documents, including the source code.

He said he, along with other defence counsel in Melbourne and Sydney, had requested disclosure of various documents from both the AFP and CDPP, including details of the inner workings of the AN0M app.

“The answer charge date is looming and we want these documents in relation to an application which could be made on that day,” he said.

“Effectively we are challenging the very basis for the AN0M application itself and these documents go to that.

“There has been a refusal to hand over details of the functioning of the app. We say we need those details because without them how can this court be satisfied that the decrypted messages are an accurate reproduction of the encrypted messages.”

John Clover, for the CDPP, said Mr Agresta and other lawyers needed to issue subpoenas to the AFP.

“It is the AFP’s claim of immunity and they need to be bought in as a party,” he said.

“Various documents have been identified as having potential relevance but also fall under claims of immunity.

“Just because they have potential relevance, not actual relevance, does not flow that it is exculpatory or helpful to (the accused).”

Claiming privilege over information allows a person or organisation to prevent it being presented to other parties in legal proceedings.

Public interest immunity is a type of privilege that is usually invoked by a government when it argues that disclosure of the information would do more harm than good.

Magistrate John Wells adjourned the hearing for a full argument and to allow the AFP to prepare its case against the release of the source code.

Originally published as Lawyers in Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide move to subpoena the source code for the encrypted AN0M app