The AFP's private security contracts are now a courtroom liability

Three fugitives retrieved from Türkiye. A combined bill of $1.1 million. And now, three years later, a NSW Supreme Court hearing that could invalidate the whole approach.

The ABC has reported (abc.net.au) that the Australian Federal Police paid Hart International and a second contractor to locate and return Masood Zakaria from Istanbul in 2023. Zakaria faces charges over the 2021 murders of Salim and Toufik Hamze, killings tied to the ongoing conflict between the Hamzy and Alameddine crime families in Sydney. His defence is arguing before the NSW Supreme Court that the operation was an unlawful deportation — effectively a kidnapping — and that the charges should be permanently stayed as a result.

The criminal allegations against Zakaria are serious. But the procedural question his defence has opened is arguably more significant for Australian law enforcement long-term: when the AFP writes a cheque to a private security firm to physically move a suspect across international borders, who holds the legal liability if that operation doesn't survive judicial scrutiny?

The contracting model and its blind spots

Hart International's CEO told the court the firm has held AFP contracts for 26 years. That's not a fly-by-night arrangement — it suggests a well-worn procurement pathway that successive AFP administrations treated as routine. The problem with routine is that it tends to discourage the hard questions. Has anyone litigated this specific model in an Australian court before? Apparently not at this level.

The AFP's apparent position is that contracting a private firm to escort a suspect onto a plane is lawful. That may be correct. But "may be correct" is not the same as "has been tested and confirmed." Australian law does not offer the same protection as the American doctrine established in Ker v. Illinois (1886), which allows prosecution regardless of how a defendant was brought before the court. Without an equivalent shield, the legality of the extraction becomes fair game for defence counsel — and that is exactly what is happening now.

What makes this a contracting problem, not just a legal curiosity, is the structure of accountability. When a government agency performs an operation itself, the chain of command and legal authority are relatively clear. When it outsources the physical component to a private firm operating in a foreign jurisdiction, accountability fragments. The AFP authorised the mission. Hart executed it. Turkish authorities either cooperated or didn't. At each handover point, someone made a decision that is now being reconstructed in a Sydney courtroom. If the documentation at any of those points is thin, inconsistent, or silent on the basis of authority, the defence has a thread to pull.

What "26 years of contracts" doesn't protect you from

Longevity in a contracting relationship creates a false sense of security. An agency and a vendor can work together for decades inside a framework that has never been stress-tested, and then a single high-profile case exposes the gaps. Hart is not a new or unknown operator — the firm was also brought in by Nine Network following the 2016 Beirut incident, when journalist Tara Brown was arrested during a controversial child recovery story in Lebanon. That history, and the word "mercenary" that has appeared in some coverage of the firm, points to a tension the private security industry has never cleanly resolved: these operations look like state power but are delivered by commercial contractors, in jurisdictions that may not recognise the authority being claimed.

The other two fugitives retrieved from Türkiye under similar AFP contracts have not mounted comparable legal challenges. That may mean their extractions were cleaner, or it may simply mean their lawyers haven't got there yet. Either way, the AFP cannot treat this as an isolated problem confined to the Zakaria file.

XGuard trains operators to treat the legal framework as part of the operational plan — not something sorted after the fact or assumed to be handled by whoever signed the contract. In cross-border or high-stakes escort work, the question of what authority your personnel are claiming at each step, in each jurisdiction, needs to be answered before anyone boards a flight, not during cross-examination.

Pro tip: If your firm supports any cross-border person-escort or fugitive-adjacent work, get independent legal review in every jurisdiction your personnel will transit — not just the destination. A signed government contract does not automatically confer lawful authority under Turkish, Lebanese, or any other foreign law, and it will not insulate you from scrutiny in an Australian court if the operation is challenged.

The institutional exposure for the AFP

If the Supreme Court finds the Zakaria extraction unlawful, the fallout won't stop at this case. It calls into question the two other Türkiye operations conducted under the same contracting model. It raises doubt about the enforceability of similar arrangements the AFP may have in place or is considering. And it hands defence teams in future rendition cases a detailed roadmap.

The AFP will be watching every line of the judgment. So will every private security firm that holds, or hopes to hold, a government contract for work that crosses a border.

The hearing continues. Whatever the court decides, the industry's comfortable assumption that a government contract equals legal cover has already taken damage it won't easily repair.

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Source: au-abc-news — 2026-10-23