At one point in the interview, Sary cast himself as the hero, claiming he provided information gleaned from his boss to opposition figures exiled abroad.
But he has not convinced furious Australian-Cambodians, who befriended and trusted Sary, inviting him into their homes.
“We don’t know how much damage he’s caused,” one community member, who asked to remain anonymous, told this masthead.
Hun Sen acknowledged the correspondence and Sary’s employment, saying it was as a political consultant, not as a spy.
The Australian government said it was “aware of allegations of foreign interference in the Cambodian-Australian community by members of the Cambodian People’s Party” and that it reserved the right to cancel visas.
It did not clarify how Sary came to be living in Australia, what vetting had taken place or what investigations, if any, were under way in his dealings with Hun Sen. The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, which was believed to be involved in Sary’s move to Australia, did not respond to questions.
The interview with Radio Free Asia did not disclose much of what Sary and Hun Sen discussed about Australia or the people living there, but Sary went into modest detail a few days later in a personal Facebook video.
“Things started to change when I arrived in Australia,” he said in Khmer.
Hun Sen as prime minister in 2023.Credit: AP
“[Hun Sen] changed from sharing information to posing questions about the Cambodian people living in Australia. I provided him with the general situation … generic information that everyone [already] knows.”
Whatever the truth of Sary’s entanglement with the regime, the revelations have deeply rattled the Cambodian community in Australia.
They have reason to be concerned, as the Hun family makes no room for dissent. Before a visit to Australia in 2018, Hun Sen threatened to chase anyone who protested his presence to their homes and personally beat them up. Most of his international bullying, however, is understood to be more clandestine.
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Hun Sen has ruled Cambodia in various guises for about 40 years, mostly as prime minister. He passed that title to his son, Hun Manet, in 2023, holding for himself the presidency of the Senate and the all-powerful Cambodian People’s Party.
It is not known who leaked the messages between Hun Sen and Sary. One exiled opposition leader, Mu Sochua, suggested the wily strongman could have done it himself to sow doubt among reform activists: if Sary was his man, others could be too.
In Cambodia, Hun Sen has publicly derided Sary, meaning bad things possibly await if he were to be sent there.
Sary’s radio interview and Facebook posts suggest he hoped his confessions and knowledge of Hun Sen’s behind-the-scenes tactics would allow him to hold a formal position in a reform movement, but exiled opposition figurehead Sam Rainsy said this was unlikely.
“I don’t play with a type of person like Hun Sen,” Rainsy said. “And I don’t play with those who play with Hun Sen.”
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Sary’s claims of persecution before moving to Australia appear genuine. In September 2021, Hun Sen became offended by something Sary had written months earlier that detailed how, in the right conditions, Rainsy could form a government.
Sary said that at some point while he was living in Thailand, “Prime Minister Hun Sen’s spying group” arrived at his unit while he was out buying food.
“It was a Sunday,” he said. “Many days later, I received more threats … If I got arrested, I would have been put in the car and sent back to Cambodia right away.”
Sary went to stay with Cambodia National Rescue Party activists and then at a Thai military base, he said.
“Then I received a phone call with a Cambodian number,” he said. “I didn’t pick up the first call because I was in the bathroom. But I picked up the second call and heard the voice of Hun Sen … he said the threat against me was a mistake.”
Seng Sary, third from the right, in a group photo with soon-to-minister Clare O’Neil, centre, in 2022. Credit: Facebook
After this conversation, Hun Sen told his courts to revoke a warrant issued for Sary’s arrest, Sary said. Cambodian media reports from the time, citing the leader’s Facebook posts, back this up. The ostensible reason for the change of heart was that Hun Sen accepted Sary’s explanation he was writing analyses, not incitements.
The pair continued having conversations, sometimes for hours. Soon, they were referring to each other as “father” and “son”.
Sary said Hun Sen offered him a senior government job, which he declined because he liked working at his Thai university. But he did accept a deal for $US10,000 a month for research, and another unknown amount to help with a mortgage. This, he said, was the start of the “espionage trap”.
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The regime-funded work was for research into opposition figures living in exile in Thailand, and the support they had from Cambodian expats. He believed Hun Sen wanted to find out about the structure of any potential alternative government so names could be added to a proposed anti-terrorism list. Sary claimed he passed on innocuous findings of his “research” but kept sensitive information to himself.
That tranche of work lasted a year. By his own timeline, this carried into his time living in Australia. What the pair got up to after that, or if any more money changed hands, remains hazy. The Australian Federal Police said it was “not a matter” for them.
When contacted by this masthead, Sary declined to comment.
Sary was known to be close to Sochua, the exiled leader of the Khmer Movement for Democracy, and was serving as a consultant to the party while secretly communicating with Hun Sen.
“We had no idea when he was with us, at all, about his double role and his direct involvement with Hun Sen,” Sochua told this masthead from Melbourne, while visiting Australia on a speaking tour.
“It’s a big shock, but also not surprising because Hun Sen in the past 30 years has continued to make Cambodian society a society and culture of fear – a culture of not knowing who is watching or listening.”
Sary’s agreement with the movement had been terminated, she said. The Global Cambodia Youth Network also sacked him as an adviser this month, while noting that it “strongly believes Mr Seng Sary will not give up the democracy path [or] turn to the dictatorship”.
Former Coalition home affairs minister Karen Andrews and former immigration minister Alex Hawke were in charge when Sary arrived in 2022. They did not respond to questions. O’Neil also failed to respond to a request for comment. The University of Melbourne declined to comment, citing privacy.
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