The head of Australia’s overseas intelligence agency has been criticised after being photographed posing with a clenched fist beside the controversial Philippines president, Rodrigo Duterte.

Nick Warner, the director general of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, met the leader, nicked named “the Punisher”, at Malacañang palace in Manila on Tuesday.

The president’s office later released photos of the spy chief smiling and using Duterte’s signature hand gesture, a symbol from his 2016 presidential campaign in which the former mayor pledged to kill thousands of criminals.

Since Duterte took power last July, government figures show police have killed close to 3,500 “drug personalities”. Rights groups say many of the dead are alleged addicts or suspected dealers among the urban poor. More than 2,000 other people have been gunned down in drug-related crimes and thousands more murdered in unexplained circumstances, according to police data.

The recent killing of a 17-year-old student by police has sparked nationwide protest and several government investigations. Even Duterte was forced to concede that officers may have committed murder.

Australian Labor MP Anthony Byrne, who is deputy chair of the joint committee on intelligence and security, tweeted that image was a “completely inappropriate photo for the head of one our most important intelligent services to be in”.

Elaine Pearson, the director of Human Rights Watch in Australia, said it was “sickening to see [the] head of Australia’s spy agency fist-pumping a man who has instigated the killing of thousands”.

On Thursday the Australian foreign minister, Julie Bishop, said she had not spoken to the director general but she was “confident it would not have been his idea”. “I don’t know the details of how it came about or who released the photograph,” she said.

“But of course the Australian Secret Intelligence Service is called a secret intelligence service for a reason – preferably the work that Asis does is below the surface but there are instances where it comes public.



“I’m very proud of the work Asis does.”

Duterte has shown disregard for any human rights scrutiny, saying he is “happy to slaughter” millions of addicts and dismissing the deaths of children as “collateral damage”.

Political opponents of Duterte have attempted to bring him to the international criminal court in the Netherlands, accusing the president of crimes against humanity.

Duterte regularly goes on profanity-laced diatribes against widespread international condemnations, labelling the United Nations “stupid” and warning the European Union not to “fuck with us” after its parliament said there were credible reports of extrajudicial killings by police.

However, after he met the Australian foreign minister earlier this month, Duterte said Canberra had “considerably toned down” criticism of the bloody drug war and added that Bishop had raised the issue of human rights “only in passing”.

President Duterte meets with Australian Secret Intelligence Service Director General Nick Warner in Malacañang pic.twitter.com/3u1sLFUEgb — Pia Gutierrez (@pia_gutierrez) August 22, 2017

A spokeswoman for Bishop said on Wednesday the Warner met leaders and ministers of regional countries regularly “to advance co-operation in information sharing to counter-terrorism”.

Philippines armed forces chief Gen Eduardo Año told the Guardian that Warner had paid a “courtesy call” to the president.



“Australia is our ally and we have been working with them continuously in our war against terrorism, particularly in sharing and exchange of information,” he said.

The visit comes just a week after Australia moved to formally list Islamic State in east Asia as a terrorist organisation.

The Philippine army has been hammering the city of Marawi in the southern province of Mindanao for months after local militant factions, who publicly claim allegiance to Isis, rampaged through and took control of several neighbourhoods.

Duterte made a promise to soldiers battering the city with airstrikes and artillery that he would protect them if they committed crimes, including rape.

Australia’s attorney general, George Brandis, has said Isis was using the conflict in Marawi as a “call to arms”, with foreign fighters believed to be actively fighting against Philippine security forces.

Observers warn, however, that the local criminal group leading the attack, the Maute group, have entirely local aspirations of power and are using the Isis brand to draw attention to their anti-government cause.

“We need to be careful not to buy into an Isis narrative that is only skin deep,” said Tom Smith, an academic specialising in political violence in south-east Asia.

“Thus far there is little evidence that the violent local clans in Mindanao have any connection to Isis that is deeper than just branding,” he said, adding that several local insurgent groups have been running for half a century, long before Isis.

Yet the spectre of any Isis-affiliated faction in the Philippines holding territory led the US and Australia to offer military support to Duterte, who declared martial law across Mindanao, an island of about 20 million people.

“The regional threat from terrorism, in particular from Daesh and foreign fighters, is a direct threat to Australia and our interests,” Australian defence minister Marise Payne said in a statement, referring to Isis by an Arabic acronym.

Meanwhile, half of more than 60,000 children who fled the city when fighting broke out have not re-enrolled in school, Save the Children said this week.

The Department of Education recently indicated that at least 14 schools in the city had been destroyed, burnt or looted.

Olney warned that many children would need long-term support to deal with emotional distress.



“The children who fled or experienced the bloodshed in Marawi are at risk of being permanently traumatised after repeatedly witnessing conflict and hearing horrifying stories about those who didn’t make it out,” said Ned Olney, the charity’s Philippines director.

Additional reporting by Carmela Fonbuena, a senior reporter at Rappler.com