Australian intelligence agencies are suspicious of the evidence touted by the Trump administration that indicates the coronavirus outbreak began in a laboratory in Wuhan, the Chinese city where the first COVID-19 cases were reported.
Senior members of the Australian intelligence community told local media that a research document shared between countries under the Five Eyes intelligence alliance did not contain material from intelligence gathering. Instead, the document is based on news reports and open-source material.
Under the Five Eyes alliance, the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom share intelligence. Australian intelligence sources said they had not been provided any strong intelligence to back up the Trump administration’s claim, but they also have not been able to rule out the lab theory either.
Debate over whether the virus originated in a lab or a nearby wet market has carried on for weeks.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday that he had seen “enormous evidence” indicating the COVID-19 outbreak originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China. He also noted he did not believe the virus was “man-made.”
A senior intelligence official told the Washington Examiner last week that a majority of the 17 agencies that compose the U.S. intelligence community believe the coronavirus outbreak likely originated with an accidental lab escape from a laboratory in Wuhan.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Friday that his government did not have strong evidence linking the Wuhan lab to the virus.
“There’s nothing that we have that would indicate that was the likely source,” he said.
