ASIO bug records far-right extremist shooting and taunting dying National Action ‘informer’
When an ASIO bug picked up every sound of a murder, from the gunshots to the killer’s taunts and the victim’s dying breaths, it kickstarted a secret war against right-wing extremists that persists in Australia to this day. WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
Crime in Focus
Don't miss out on the headlines from Crime in Focus. Followed categories will be added to My News.
WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
ASIO was at the centre of one of the most graphic and unique murder cases in Australian criminal history 28 years ago this month, with the shocking attack laying the foundations for its war on right-wing and neo-Nazi extremism today.
A dedicated unit within the domestic spy agency now tracks up to 100 far-right groups operating across the country, but intelligence chiefs were forced to review resources in the wake of the Christchurch, New Zealand, mosque attacks by an Australian white supremacist in March.
ASIO chief Duncan Lewis has now briefed the Federal Government, declaring there is no need for more focused resources since “this is something which we have been involved in for 30, 40 years”.
And he is right, for it was back in 1991 that an ASIO agent’s eavesdropping bug, planted inside a right-wing extremists’ meeting house, recorded in graphic detail the shooting of a man and his slow death after he was accused of being an agent for the spy agency or the AFP.
Police Tape: How Bra Boys gangster took on our toughest cop — and lost
True Crime Australia: Victim’s family to sue over parolee-killer
The shooting murder was described by police prosecutors at the time as “virtually unique in Australian forensics”, with the entire killing recorded on audio, but the full circumstances of the case have never been properly aired, shrouded in closed court hearings as the time.
Still, the case highlights the type of characters and attitudes within the extremists’ world, with members prepared to kill one of their own to remain off-the-radar with authorities.
In early 1991, ASIO planted several listening devices in the headquarters of militant white supremacist group National Action in Tempe in Sydney’s inner west.
The group was founded almost a decade earlier, on Anzac Day 1982, but had become more vocal and was attracting an interesting membership of extremists, convicted criminals and neo-Nazis. There was also a shooting of a house belonging to the African National Congress representative in Sydney in 1989, linked to National Action and specifically early member Wayne David Smith.
Inside the group though, there was paranoia and conspiracy, with members suspecting they were being watched.
Perry John Whitehouse, 35, was with Smith in the meeting room on April 20, 1991, when an argument broke out between the pair. Whitehouse suspected Smith, who was to be kicked out of the group, was an agent for the authorities.
Smith had been on the landline telephone moments prior to being confronted again about the issue by Whitehouse and conveniently left the receiver, with one of ASIO’s bugs, off the hook, triggering a recording by ASIO of everything that followed.
The pair and two others had earlier gone to a pub where Whitehouse accused Smith of being a spy and said he had “the evidence”. The argument continued back at the Tempe headquarters, with Smith challenging Whitehouse over what he thought he had and wanted to say.
“I’ll show ya what I got to say,” Whitehouse was recorded as saying at 5.04pm.
“All right.”
Six sharp cracks from what was later discovered to be a sawn-off .22 rifle can then be heard and a heavy thud.
“That’s what I got to f----en say, you f---en c---.”
A third man in the room then asks Whitehouse what he has done.
“I just killed the p----. I just shot the f---en p----. You wanna know. Yeah, you wanna f---en know. What’ya wanna know … (words inaudible) to kill you too.
“(Words inaudible.) I just shot the f---en prick. Right. I just shot the c---. Wanna know because he’s a f---en arsehole, that’s why I shot him. Right. Do you think I’m f---en scared of … f---en goin’ to jail. I don’t give a f---. I’m not scared. Right. I shot the c--- dead. That’s what it’s all about, boy, that’s what it’s all about, f---en have a look. That’s what it’s about, right. You ain’t got the guts, guts to f---en face up to that, you’re f---en weak as piss. Right, he’s f---en dead. Now we gotta get rid o’ that body or I’m gonna get rid of the f---en body, right.”
The audio then picks up the heavy, laboured breathing of a man dying from what was later found to be eight gunshot wounds to the head, stomach and elsewhere on his body.
“Is that you, p----? Eh, you f---en arsehole. Looks as though your brains are coming out,” Whitehouse says as he walks around the body.
“Isn’t that bad luck? You police informer c---, eh? Bit o’ bad luck, mate.
“Eh? The old brain come out the back.”
The 25-year-old Smith continues to groan and gurgle for breath.
“Hope ya die, you dog bastard. That’s right …”
Whitehouse then begins to sing.
“When I was 16 … just a young boy going round and round in circles.”
He then walks again over to the body and tells Smith to “hurry up and die”.
“Well Smith, ya thought ya were pretty smart, didn’t ya, eh? (pause) that’s right. Dead as a doornail. Bad luck … Hey Smith, you’re dead. Dead, dead, dead.”
The other man in the room asks Whitehouse about the death.
“Whatta we gonna do, mate?”
“Get rid o’ the body first. Here (not real name), grab hold o’ that, will ya?”
There are sounds of movement, then Whitehouse orders the other member to gather up cartridges and puts a knife in the victim’s hand. He can be heard talking to himself about what happened and how Smith had pulled a knife on him so he had to shoot him.
“Mmmm. Well that’s not too bad. Hurry up and die, ya p----. Think he’s dead now. That’s right, ya are, aren’t ya? Hmm? You’re a dead p----. Mmm. Poor old dead c---.
“Aren’t ya. Hmm? Yeah, I seen p----s like you before. Filth. Absolute f---en filth. You’re better off dead.”
Whitehouse then calls another member on the phone, who suggests police be called. More than an hour and a half had elapsed since the shooting. Police can then be heard arriving at the headquarters.
“They wouldn’t a saved ya anyway. Eh, wouldn’t a saved ya, Smith. They wouldn’t a saved ya, Smith,” Whitehouse says before police can be heard entering the property. Whitehouse reports Smith had pulled a knife on him. The other member tells police the same.
Whitehouse would later plead guilty when it was revealed the entire murder was recorded and he was sentenced to a minimum of 13 years’ jail.
While seven ASIO agents, five men and two women, gave evidence, the case was partly held in closed court, and it was never publicly revealed why it was Whitehouse suspected Smith was a spy, or indeed, whether he was an informant or not.
A friend of Smith would later say he had become disgruntled with the way the group operated and had been feeding authorities some information.
Four years later in 1995, ASIO’s then deputy director general Gerard Walsh revealed three white supremacist members had been killed “for the real or mistaken belief” they were ASIO or special branch police informants.
One was Smith and the other two were from Perth, including David Locke, who was accused of being an informant by two drunken fellow members of the anti-Asian Australian Nationalists’ Movement in 1989. The real informant in that case was then given a new identity and sent overseas to start a new life.
The point Walsh was trying to make was that a right-wing militia threat existed here, like that which led to the Oklahoma City bombing in April that year, killing 169 people.
National Action disbanded at the time of the murder case, with some of its members moving off to join or set up other right wing and anti-immigration organisations. ASIO files on them presumably remain open.
Originally published as ASIO bug records far-right extremist shooting and taunting dying National Action ‘informer’
‘Living nightmare’: Family pain of Aussies killed in the Philippines
The family of an Australian couple found dead in a hotel room broke down as they revealed the cruelty behind the senseless murder the Philippines.
Scary way criminals are using GPS trackers
Almost half of all GPS trackers are going to buyers with nefarious backgrounds and many are allegedly used in high-profile cases including the alleged murder of bikie boss Alen Moradian.