Sary told RFA he was paid more than $US120,000 ($188,000) – “a big amount of money” – for research into Hun Sen’s greatest foe – the democracy movement.
He insisted, however, that he was careful about what he told his master. Information he allegedly gave about opposition strategies and exiled figures in Thailand and elsewhere was already public, fabricated or his own analysis, he said.
Hun Sen has ruled Cambodia in various guises for about 40 years, mostly as prime minister. He passed that title to his son in 2023.Credit: AP
Part of the reason he co-operated to the extent that he did, he claimed, was because he feared for the safety of his immediate family members, who did not arrive in Australia until last year.
“When my wife and children were in Cambodia, there were visits made by local authorities,” he claimed to RFA, a US-funded media organisation that US President Donald Trump is attempting to de-fund.
“I did not know if this was an order from the senior officials, or it was done directly by the local authority. There were people asking and observing.”
Having “learned some strategies” from his relationship with Hun Sen, Sary hoped that one day he could be accepted back into the ranks of the reformers and help their cause.
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But he has not convinced furious, democracy-minded Australian-Cambodians, many of whom were already fearful of the regime’s long tentacles. They befriended and trusted Sary, some even inviting him into their homes.
“We don’t know how much damage he might have caused,” one community member said.
A few days after the RFA interview, Sary, now believed to be living in Adelaide, went into modest detail about the pair’s discussions about Cambodians in Australia in a personal Facebook video.
“[Hun Sen] changed from sharing information to posing questions about the Cambodian people living in Australia,” he said in Khmer. “I provided him with the general situation … generic information that everyone [already] knows.”
Cambodian media, along with the Dandenong “Hero” article from 2022 and Australian-Cambodians, have reported that Sary came to Australia on a protection visa. Sary, however, declined this masthead’s request for an interview, and he did not answer emailed questions.
The Department of Home Affairs also declined to say how he made it to Australia, what vetting had taken place and what investigations, if any, were under way into his dealings with the Cambodian regime.
The revelations have not only rattled the Australian community.
Mu Sochua, the leader of the Khmer Movement for Democracy, who is living in exile in the United States, confirmed that Sary was a consultant during the same period that he was secretly dealing with Hun Sen.
“We had no idea when he was with us, at all, about his double role …,” she said.
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“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.”
She said Sary’s agreement with the movement had been terminated.
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 both the Senate and the all-powerful Cambodian People’s Party.
Before a visit to Australia in 2018, he threatened to chase would-be protesters to their homes and personally beat them up.
Whatever the truth of his entanglement with the regime, Sary’s claims of persecution – before he hooked up with Hun Sen – appeared genuine.
In September 2021, according to local media reports, the then-prime minister became offended by something Sary had written months earlier that detailed how, in the right conditions, one of Cambodia’s opposition figures, Sam Rainsy, could form a government.
Sary added to RFA that the regime was also angry at his criticism of its too-cosy relationship with China. He told RFA that around this time, “prime minister Hun Sen’s spying group” arrived at his Bangkok unit while he was out buying food”.
“If I got arrested, I would have been put in the car and sent back to Cambodia right away,” he said.
Seng Sary with Labor’s then spokesperson for senior Australians and aged care services, Clare O’Neil, in 2022.Credit: Facebook
Sary said that was when he went to stay with activists in Thailand.
“Then I received a phone call with a Cambodian number … and heard the voice of Hun Sen,” Sary told RFA. “He said the threat against me was a mistake.”
After this conversation, he said Hun Sen told his courts to revoke a warrant issued for Sary’s arrest. Cambodian media reports from the time back up the leader’s change of heart. The ostensible reason was that he had accepted Sary’s explanation that the writings were analysis, not incitement.
The pair continued having conversations, sometimes for hours. Soon, they were referring to each other as “father” and “son”.
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Sary said Hun Sen then 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 for another unknown amount to help with a mortgage. This, Sary said to RFA, was the start of the “trap”.
“If he offers the cake and we do not take the first time, it is OK,” he said in a later Facebook video. “If he offers the cake for the second time, and we do not accept again, his left hand is passing the cake, and the right hand is holding a baton.”
Sary told RFA the regime-funded work was officially for research about what Cambodians living in Thailand thought about exiled opposition figures.
Hun Sen, however, was more interested in the opposition figures themselves and their strategies, he said. He claims he believed the prime minister wanted to find out about the structure of any potential alternative government and add names to a proposed anti-terrorism list.
According to Sary, the research project lasted for a year. By his own timeline to RFA, this carried into his time living in Australia. The pair continued talking for another couple of years. What about, or whether more money changed hands, remains hazy. Only some of their messages were leaked.
The Australian Federal Police said it was “not a matter” for it, later updating the response to “no comment”.
It is not known who leaked the messages between Hun Sen and Sary. Sochua, the exiled opposition figure, suggested it was possible that Hun Sen could have done it himself to sow doubt among activists: if Sary was his man, others could be too, she reasoned.
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While not answering specific questions, a Home Affairs spokesperson said the government was “aware of allegations of foreign interference in the Cambodian-Australian community by members of the Cambodian People’s Party”.
It is not suggested that Sary is suspected of being an agent of foreign influence, only that he corresponded extensively with Hun Sen.
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 and the University of Melbourne also made no comment.
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