Phil
Pennington, Reporter
New Zealand’s spy
agency did not believe the US far-right group Proud Boys met
the threshold to be designated a terrorist
entity in 2022, but went along with it
anyway.
This has come out at a briefing of MPs by the
Security Intelligence Service (SIS) at a select committee on
Wednesday.
SIS Director-General Andrew Hampton said
they were also okay about the Proud Boys being removed
from the terrorist list last year.
“We didn’t
think they actually met the threshold” in 2022, he
said.
Dropping them from the list in 2025 meant they
ended up in a position that was “probably closer to our
original advice” in 2022.
The Combined Threat
Assessment group (CTAG), hosted by SIS, did not support
putting it on the list back then, but the general view was
to do it, and he was part of endorsing that.
“I know
I’m sounding a little ambivalent here, but we didn’t
necessarily think it was a strongly supported decision first
time.”
When it came around in 2025, “we didn’t have a
strong view either”, he said.
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In 2022, Proud
Boys were described as an ideologically fascist group
that violently targeted minority groups. Its supporters took
part in storming the US Capitol in 2020, and several had
their sentences for that commuted by US President Donald
Trump last year.
In 2025, the group was removed from
the terrorist
list here, even though the National Security Board,
which includes the SIS, unanimously recommended its
designation be renewed.
The board chair then laid out
the reasons arguing otherwise, and Hampton said he was happy
with those.
“The reality is it’s not making much
difference to the New Zealand threat environment because
they aren’t subjects for our investigation,” he told the
select committee.
Labour MP Priyanca Radhakrishnan
asked if the SIS would have endorsed removing it, despite
the police saying they were a crypto-fascist group with
participation in New Zealand.
The police had compiled
a 29-page
report of the case for putting it on the list. Under
“Proud Boys in other countries”, the report mentioned Canada
and Australia but not New Zealand.
Hampton said they
had ended up closer to CTAG’s original advice in
2022.
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