Man Haron Monis and the Sydney Lindt Café Siege – Not a Terrorist Attack

1996

In April 1996, Monis became the manager of the travel agency Rahelenoor Tours and Travel which assisted families emigrating from Iran. On 1 October 1996, from Iran, Monis applied for a one-month short-stay

Business visa to Australia. On his visa application, Monis falsely described himself as a ‘legal consultant’ to an Iranian engineering company and stated that the purpose of his visit was to meet with representatives of BHP Billiton. On 10 October 1996, ASIO assessed the application and issued a non-prejudicial assessment, and the Immigration Department granted the Business visa.

On 26 October 1996, without telling his wife or employer, Monis flew out of Tehran. On 28 October 1996, after transiting through Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, Monis arrived at Sydney International Airport. Monis’ former wife later reported that she married Monis shortly after leaving school and that Monis forbade her continuing her education at university and was very secretive about his work.6 She described Monis as a ‘cruel’ and violent husband and added that he was not a devout Muslim. She also debunked Monis’ later claims that she and her two daughters had been detained by the Government of Iran. The inquest heard evidence which suggested that before he left Iran, Monis defrauded clients of a total sum equivalent to A$550,000. On 4 November 1996, although ASIO received potentially adverse information about Monis, none of the intelligence related to any terrorist threat. On 18 November 1996, less than three weeks after arriving in Australia, Monis applied for a Protection visa.

1997

Although he never had a gun licence in Australia, from 1997 to 2000, Monis held a security guard licence, which permitted him to carry a pistol whilst he was working and, in April 1997, Monis had basic training in handling a side-arm and was later briefly employed as a security officer at a shopping centre in the western Sydney suburb of Greenfield Park.

In April 1997, in support of his application for a Protection visa, Monis submitted a number of claims including that as well as being a Shi’a cleric, he had been engaged in gathering intelligence for foreign governments through his high-level political and religious contacts in Iran. Monis implausibly claimed that having also worked for the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security, he had witnessed torture and had knowledge of highly sensitive information about the involvement of Iran in the bombing of the Khobar Towers building in Saudi Arabia on 25 June 1996, which killed 19 United States soldiers.8 Even though Monis professed to be a Shi’a cleric, he also perversely claimed that he had been victimised for his association with the minority Ahmadi sect, a persecuted stream of Sunni Islam.9 Monis insisted that if he returned to Iran, he would be summarily executed. He further claimed that he was afraid that if the Iranian Government found out he was in Australia, he would be targeted for assassination.

On 30 April 1997, Amnesty International wrote to the Immigration Department supporting the credibility of Monis’ claims and emphasised that it was reasonable to expect that he would face arrest as a prisoner of conscience and may be tortured or executed if he was forced to return to Iran. Later, in 2010, when he again approached Amnesty International as ‘Sheikh Haron’ complaining about threats he received from the public after he was charged for writing offensive letters to the families of fallen soldiers, Monis’ request for assistance was declined. Subsequently, Amnesty International acknowledged that in 1997 it had been misled by Monis.10

In July 1997, Monis began receiving support via the Asylum Seeker Income Support scheme. On 16 September 1997, Monis attended the Sydney offices of the Immigration Department and participated in a prolonged interview which was conducted largely in Farsi. The Coroner noted that the transcript of the interview showed that Monis performed poorly during the interview, his answers to searching questions lacked coherence and when pressed to clarify his claims, Monis changed parts of his account.11 Subsequently, the Immigration Department reviewed Monis’ application and discussed with ASIO a perceived lack of credibility of Monis’ claims.

1998

On 18 May 1998, Monis contacted the ASIO public line, claiming to have information relevant to the upcoming Sydney Olympic Games. ASIO interviewed Monis on two separate occasions and assessed that he had no information relevant to national security.

On 18 June 1998, the Immigration Department determined that Australia owed protection to Monis under the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. Monis’ case was formally referred to ASIO for a security assessment, and on 24 August 1998 the Immigration Department received a certificate from the AFP which confirmed that Monis had no criminal record in Australia. On 23 November 1998, Monis participated in an ASIO-conducted security assessment interview.

1999

On 16 July 1999, Monis applied to the Department of Fair Trading to incorporate an association he called Daftar-e-Ayatollah Manteghi Boroujerdi. Monis listed the purposes of the association was ‘to promote the spiritual matters and teaching and education and engage in humanitarian, religion and charity’ by the publication of books and newspapers and establishing schools and ‘similar activities’. The Coroner found no evidence that the association ever undertook any of these activities.12

2000

In early 2000, Monis moved from Sydney to Perth, where he gained employment as a carpet salesman. On 25 July 2000, after initially recommending against the issue of a Protection visa, ASIO advised the Immigration Department that it did not assess Monis to be a direct or indirect risk to national security, and ASIO ceased its investigation. On 23 August 2000, Monis was living in Perth when he was granted a Protection visa. The Review later found that ‘very few or no checks were made to ascertain the legitimacy’ of Monis’ Protection visa application.13

On 20 October 2000, Monis wrote the first of many letters to public figures and the United Nations. He also began writing to dignitaries and newspapers around the world. Even though he had originally told the Immigration Department that he feared that if the Iranian Government discovered that he was in Australia, he might be targeted for assassination, on 23 November 2000, in his first public protest, Monis chained himself to a pole outside Parliament House in Perth and staged a hunger strike asserting that he was protesting against the Iranian Government for not allowing him to see his children in Iran.

2001

On 20 January 2001, having moved to Sydney, Monis began a protest outside the New South Wales Parliament again, with the purported intention of convincing the Iranian Government to allow him to see his children in Iran. By 31 January 2001, Monis’ protests had attracted the attention of the media, and he was interviewed on the ABC program ‘Religion Report’. Monis, who at that time was using the name Manteghi Boroujerdi, was introduced as follows:

People in Sydney walking past the State Parliament buildings on Macquarie Street in recent weeks might have noticed a tall Muslim cleric who has taken up residence in a tent on the footpath outside. He is Ayatollah Manteghi Boroujerdi, a liberal cleric who fled Iran four years ago after being very critical of the Iranian regime. Ayatollah Boroujerdi’s wife and two daughters are now under house arrest in Iran, and he’s hoping the Howard government will put pressure on the regime there to let his family join him here in Australia.14

During the interview, Monis claimed that he had been:

[I]nvolved with the Ministry of Intelligence and Security … more than four years I have not seen my family, and the Iranian regime doesn’t let them come out. In fact I can say they are hostage; as a hostage the Iranian regime wants to make me silent, because I have some secret information about government, and about their terrorist operations in the war. I sent a letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations and somebody on behalf of Mr Kofi Anan sent the answer, and they want to do something.

Later, during a rambling interview, Monis professed his love for the West:

If we explain about the meaning of the word ‘Islamic’ as a religious society, if we say Islamic society is a religious society, and a society which has a relation with God, and wants to be honest, we can say Australia, Canada, England, USA, so many western countries, they are religious societies.

Whenever I walk in the street, whenever I go out in Australia, I feel I am in a real religious society. I don’t want to say it is perfect, we don’t have a perfect society on the earth, but when we compare, if we compare Australia with Iran and other countries in the Middle East, we can say it is heaven.

Between 13 February and 13 August 2001, Monis received Newstart payments. On 23 July 2001, less than a year after he was granted a Protection visa, Monis registered the first of a number of businesses. The business activity of Monis’ ‘Spiritual Power’ was listed as ‘spiritual consulting’ and ‘spiritual healing for society’. Monis operated his business from premises in the suburb of Wentworthville and claimed to be an expert in clairvoyance, astrology, numerology, meditation and ‘black magic’.

Monis advertised his business in local ethnic newspapers, and subsequent investigations by police showed that Monis had at least 500 clients over the business years from 2002 to 2007. It was later alleged that Monis preyed on vulnerable women who were told that their ‘treatment’ entailed them undressing and allowing Monis to paint them with water and massage their breasts and genitals. His conduct extended from indecent touching under the guise of massage to full penetration. When his victims objected, Monis overcame their resistance by intimidation including threats that he would impose ‘curses’ or other harm if the women did not submit to his predations. Monis also took photos and videos of some of the sessions, and it was this cache of incriminating files that later enabled police to establish a strike force to prosecute Monis for multiple offences. Ultimately, by October 2014, Monis was charged with 43 counts of aggravated indecent and sexual assault, allegedly committed between 2002 and 2010 against six victims.

In April 2001, INTERPOL Canberra alerted the Immigration Department that INTERPOL Tehran had advised that Monis was wanted by Iranian authorities. INTERPOL Tehran requested advice on the possible provisional arrest and extradition of Monis for ‘fraud-related’ offences allegedly committed in Iran. Although the Immigration Department made repeated requests between May and December 2001 to INTERPOL Tehran to provide relevant documentation of the alleged charges, since no extradition agreement existed, it was not possible to arrest Monis with a view to extradition. No arrest warrant or summary of specific charges against Monis was ever received. In the absence of the requested information, INTERPOL Canberra closed Monis’ file.

In 1988, during the resistance to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Saudi national Osama bin Laden founded the militant Sunni Islamist organisation al-Qaeda.15 In 1996 and 1998, because of the United States’ support of the ‘Zionists who occupy Al Quds’ (Jerusalem) and because United States troops were stationed on the sacred land of Saudi Arabia, bin Laden issued a call to target America (which he called the ‘head of the snake’). Bin Laden also claimed that, since the United States was engaged in a war against Muslims, ‘jihad’ was required in the defence of Islam.17 On the morning of 11 September 2001, airliners hijacked by al-Qaeda operatives crashed into the World Trade Center complex in New York City and the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, claiming nearly 3000 victims.18

On 12 September 2001, Monis called the ASIO public line and volunteered information that Iran, whose Government is a Shi’a theocracy and whose population is overwhelmingly Shi’a, funded the attacks on the United States. In late September 2001, October 2001 and January 2002, ASIO again interviewed Monis and assessed his claims as not credible. During one interview, Monis asked whether he might receive a reward from the United States Government for his assistance.

Following the September 2001 attacks, President Bush demanded that the Taliban, which controlled much of Afghanistan, hand over bin Laden and expel al-Qaeda. On 7 October 2001, the United States launched ‘Operation Enduring Freedom’ and invaded Afghanistan, initially with the support of Canada and the United Kingdom, and later by a coalition of over 40 countries. In November 2001, Australia first sent a troop contingent to Afghanistan.19 In August 2003, the first troops from NATO arrived and later took over the leadership of the coalition forces in Afghanistan.

2002

On 16 September 2002, Monis changed his name to Michael Hayson Mavros and, on 11 October 2002, he applied for Australian citizenship. On 18 June 2003, ASIO interviewed Monis after he called the public line to complain about the delay in the processing of his application. Between September 2003 and July 2007, Monis travelled overseas on 21 separate occasions. His destinations included Fiji, New Zealand and Canada, and he travelled 10 times to Thailand.

The Coroner documented Monis’ history of exploitation of a number of women with whom he had relationships, including some concurrently.20 In August 2002, after responding to an advertisement about his spiritual healing, Noleen Hayson Pal, a 20-year-old Fijian Indian woman, began a relationship with 39-year-old Monis, who later moved into her parents’ home in Sydney. Monis lied about his age and told Pal and her family that his mother was Egyptian and his father was Greek and that he was a non-practising Muslim. In August 2003, Monis and Pal had a ceremonial wedding, even though Monis was still married to his wife in Iran.21 In 2004, Monis’ first son was born. In January 2008, Monis’ second son was born. Monis never supported Pal or his two sons and refused to have his name on their birth certificates. Pal’s parents built a granny flat in the backyard of the home for Pal and the children. During a subsequent domestic violence hearing, Pal describing Monis’ controlling behaviour, his insistence that she not leave the flat and that she surrender her mobile phone, and his paranoia and secretiveness. Pal reported that she never knew Monis’ real age and that most nights they slept apart.

2003

In February 2003, during his address to the United Nations, as well as warning of dangers of ‘weapons of mass destruction’ in Iraq, United States Secretary of State Colin Powell referred to links between the regime of Saddam Hussein and the Jordanian-born Iraqi- based Sunni extremist Abu Masab al-Zarqawi22 and al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. On 20 March 2003, ‘Operation Iraqi Freedom’ was launched, and United States and coalition forces invaded Iraq. On 7 August 2003, a huge car bomb destroyed the Jordanian embassy in Bagdad, killing at least 17 people. A week later, a bomb exploded outside the headquarters of the newly installed United Nations Assistance Mission in Bagdad, killing 22 people and, soon after, a massive blast killed the Shi’a leader, Ayatollah Baqer al-Hakim and 83 worshippers outside the Shi’a Imam Ali Mosque in Najaf in southern Iraq.

2004

In February 2004, bombings during the Ashura festival slaughtered 185 Shi’a celebrants in Karbala and Baghdad and, two weeks later, 102 Iraqi police recruits died in two car-bombings. Al-Zarqawi later claimed responsibility for all these attacks, and he became known as ‘the sheikh of the slaughterers’.23 After the coalition forces toppled Sunni Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein within a month of the invasion, the occupying coalition forces found a natural ally in the Shi’a population which had been brutally repressed and disenfranchised by Saddam’s regime. At the same time, the ‘deBaathification’ and disbanding of Saddam’s armed forces alienated tens of thousands of young Sunni Muslim men with military training.24 In May 2004, the videotaped beheading of kidnapped United States communications contractor Nicholas Berg was the first of a number of atrocities attributed to al-Zarqawi personally25 as Iraq slowly declined into wholesale sectarian warfare with an unprecedented campaign of indiscriminate bombings and shootings. Although he shared al-Qaeda’s goal of killing Americans, al-Zarqawi believed that the subjugation of Shi’as should actually be the jihadists’ highest priority.26

In July 2004, Monis’ legal representatives contacted the Immigration Department to complain about the delay in the processing of his application for citizenship and advised that Monis believed that he was being discriminated against because he was a Muslim. On 1 September 2004, ASIO formally advised the Immigration Department that Monis was assessed as not being a direct or indirect risk to national security. On 16 September 2004, his citizenship application was approved and, on 20 October 2004, Monis was granted Australian citizenship which was conferred during a private ceremony that Monis requested for ‘security reasons’.

2005

In January 2005, the Australian Customs Service received correspondence from a lawyer representing Monis, who complained about his treatment by Customs Officers when he arrived at Sydney International Airport. On 17 February 2005, Monis called the ASIO public line to ask if it was legal for him, as an Australian citizen, to meet officials of foreign governments.

On 7 July 2005, four Islamist extremists separately detonated three bombs in quick succession aboard London Underground trains and later on a double-decker bus in Tavistock Square. On 15 July 2005, Monis called the ASIO public line claiming to have information relating to suicide attacks. On the same day, ASIO met with Monis, who claimed he had contacts with Sunni al-Qaeda and similar groups and offered to assist ASIO. Subsequently, ASIO assessed the information provided by Monis as not credible. Between 22–26 July 2005, Monis also contacted the United Kingdom High Commission, claiming that he was a Muslim cleric and that he had information about the London bombings.

Throughout 2005, Monis travelled to Bahrain, Canada, New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand and Fiji. Complaining that he had been searched at Sydney airport on his return from overseas, Monis also later claimed that the Australian Government was ‘harassing’ Muslim clerics. During the inquest, a solicitor who had previously acted for Monis testified that Monis had claimed he was being ‘set up’ by ASIO and ‘picked on’ by Australian Customs officials about his frequent trips abroad. The solicitor told the inquest that he did not know why Monis travelled so often. Monis once flew to New Zealand and back in one day to ‘bamboozle Customs, to make people believe that he was doing something’.27 Monis claimed that after the conviction of Australian Schapelle Corby for drug smuggling in Indonesia, Australian Customs officials ‘targeted Muslim clerics’ and also wanted ‘revenge’ for the relatively light sentence given to radical cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, leader of a splinter cell of the Jemaah Islamiyah, for his role in inciting the bomb-ings in the tourist district of Kuta in Bali on 12 October 2002 which killed 202 people, including 88 Australians.

In 2005, after Monis reported symptoms of depression, general practitioner Dr Julie Kusama referred him to psychiatrist Dr Daniel Murray. In his evidence to the Coroner’s inquest, Dr Murray reported that when he first attended, Monis presented as a quite legitimate and credible incognito Islamic cleric, who was dressed in a suit and tie and was polite and well spoken, with good conversational English. Dr Murray reported that he developed a rapport with Monis, who spoke about his losses, including the family he left in Iran. Whilst Monis did not disclose any specific traumatic life events, Dr Murray assumed that because of his refugee status, Monis had experienced trauma in Iran. Dr Murray told the inquest that Monis did not disclose any concerns about being under surveillance. Dr Murray did not elicit any features of psychosis and made a provisional diagnosis of a paranoid personality disorder. Dr Murray told the inquest that he diagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder and a stress- related depressive disorder and prescribed the anti-depressant Lovan (fluoxetine) and the hypnotic Stilnox (zolpidem).

During the inquest, Dr Murray agreed with counsel assisting the Coroner that Monis may have been ‘diagnosis shopping’. The Coroner noted that it was likely that the consultations with Dr Murray were designed to substantiate Monis’ claim that he had suffered harm from being victimised by the Australian Customs Service with which he was in dispute.28

2006

On 21 November 2006, Monis changed his name to Man Haron Monis and, a week later, he was issued a new passport. In February 2007, Monis contacted the ASIO open public line and requested a meeting during which he advised that he wanted to become a ‘teacher’ in the Islamic community and that he had changed his name to be more readily identifiable as a Muslim and that he intended to help lead Muslim youth away from extremism. Monis advised that he planned to moderate his ‘pro-western views’ in order to connect with young Muslims. He offered to become a source for ASIO and provided a three-page ‘plan’ outlining the offer. Citing concern about his motivation and his unusual behaviour and that he had provided no information of security relevance, ASIO internally re-confirmed that contact with Monis should not be pursued.

2007

On 30 June 2007, a 4-wheel drive loaded with propane canisters was driven into the glass doors of the Glasgow Airport terminal and set ablaze. Both of the occupants were apprehended at the scene, and police later identified a British-born Muslim doctor of Iraqi descent and an Indian-born engineering student. A suicide note indicated that the two had intended to die in the attack. On 4 July 2007, as he was preparing to leave Australia, Indian-born Muslim Dr Muhamed Haneef, who was a second cousin of two of the terror suspects, was arrested at Brisbane Airport, on suspicion of terror-related activities. Dr Haneef’s ensuing detention without charge became the longest in recent Australian history, which caused great controversy in both Australia and India.29

On 5 July 2007, using the name Sheikh Haron, Monis wrote his first letter of complaint to Channel 7 about comments made by an academic on the ‘Sunrise’ program related to the arrest of Dr Haneef and seven ‘Muslim doctors’ in the United Kingdom30. At the same time, Monis also made his first complaint to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), which launched an inquiry to determine whether the Channel 7 program ‘discriminated against Muslims’. For years after the Haneef affair, Monis confected outrage and repeatedly made reference to the ‘Sunrise’ program and handed out flyers critical of Channel 7. Monis later maintained a website on which he posted the statement:

Until 4th July 2007 I was in a deep sleep. Sunrise woke me up! God can awaken a person by many different means even by a terrorist broadcast from the program Sunrise on Channel Seven from the Australian TV! I thank God and I won’t give up until the Australian government condemns that broadcast which was instructing terrorism.31

On 30 August 2007, Monis registered the domain name ‘sheikh.haron.com’ with a Melbourne-based register and a United States- based Internet provider. He also created the website ‘www.sheikhharon.com’ and began posting inflammatory and provocative statements, including media releases and copies of his letters and responses. Monis also took out front-page advertisements with the Australian Muslim newspaper Crescent Times, directing readers to his ‘Sheikh Haron’ website. The Coroner also noted that Monis later set up YouTube accounts under the names ‘Peaceactivist’ and ‘Sheikh Haron’ as well as a Facebook page.32 From late 2007, using the name Sheikh Haron, Monis also began send-ing the first of approximately 60 letters, facsimile messages and media releases to a range of recipients including the Prime Minister, the Federal Opposition Leader, the Federal Attorney-General and the AFP Commissioner.

On 27 November and 12 December 2007, and on 22 March 2008, Monis sent letters to the family of Private Luke Worsley, who died in Afghanistan on 23 November 2007. On 4, 6 and 7 May 2008, Monis sent letters to the family of Lance Corporal Jason Marks, who died in Afghanistan earlier during the same month. On 27 July 2009, Monis sent letters to the family of Australian trade official Craig Senger, who was killed in the bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Jakarta on 17 July 2009. In his letters, Monis referred to one of the deceased soldiers as the ‘son of a dirty pig’ and ‘dirty animal’.33 Monis called the soldiers ‘murderers’ and urged the soldiers’ families to petition the government to withdraw

Australian troops from Afghanistan. All of the letters were signed ‘Sheikh Haron’, and copies of many of the letters were sent to public figures including the Prime Minister, the Minister for Defence, the Federal AttorneyGeneral and the Commissioner of the AFP.

On 28 December 2007, Monis threatened legal action against The Australian newspaper over an article published earlier in that month. Through Monis’ lawyer, who insisted that he acted for a ‘senior cleric’, Monis complained that the newspaper misrepresented him as a ‘mysterious imam’.34

2008

Between February 2008 and September 2010, Monis was alleged to have committed further sexual assault offences whilst presenting himself as a spiritual healer.

In February 2008, the office of the New South Wales Premier referred a facsimile message from Monis to the AFP in relation to his previous warnings of potential terrorist-related attacks in Australia and his grievances with the AFP, which he described as ‘corrupt’. In January and March 2008, Monis wrote to the Queen of England and to the Pope. On 20 March 2008, the AFP emphasised that Monis exhibited obsessive preoccupations and fixated interest in high-office holders and dignitaries and identified him as a ‘person of interest’ in relation to the forthcoming visit to Australia by Pope Benedict XVI.

On 28 April 2008, Monis purported to write a ‘fatwa’ on his website and described United Kingdom and Australian heads of state as ‘war criminals’. Although the fatwa was phrased as a general requirement for Muslims to respond to war crimes and not a specific threat to individuals, given his continuing inflammatory public statements, ASIO again commenced an investigation. In April 2008, officers of the AFP met with Monis and advised him that if he continued to send offensive and harassing letters, he risked being charged with offences. Monis replied that he was within his rights to correspond with whomever he wanted, and he subsequently sent several more letters.

In May 2008, Monis posted on his website a video entitled ‘suicide fatwa’, in which his new partner since 2006, Anastasia Droudis, appeared wearing a black niqab, so that her eyes only were visible and discussed ‘legitimate suicide attacks’. Droudis came from a Greek Orthodox family and had been a hairdresser. She changed her name from Anastasia to Amirah (Arabic for ‘princess’) and, in July 2008, converted to Islam. Between April 2008 and December 2009, Droudis appeared in 11 videos scripted by Monis in which she appeared wearing a black niqab. In the videos, Droudis praised Osama bin Laden, delivered a fatwa against Presentelect Barack Obama for ‘apostasy’ (abandoning his Muslim faith for Christianity), expressed her approval of the Holocaust, the ‘9/11’ 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States and the October 2002 Bali bombings, called upon people to join the army of Islam and warned the Prime Minister that Australians would be attacked and killed by Muslims. The material posted on the Sheikh Haron website referred to Droudis as ‘Sister Amirah’.

On 21 May 2008, Monis wrote to the then Federal Opposition Leader, claiming that recently reported explosions and fires in shopping centres were the result of terrorist activities. On 6 June 2008, Monis sent a fax to the Israeli Embassy entitled ‘Media Release: Sheik Haron’s Fatwa about suicide bombing coming’.

In June 2008, Monis conducted a protest at Parliament House in Canberra, criticising the earlier Channel 7 ‘Sunrise’ program on ‘Muslim doctors’. On 16 June and 23 July 2008, Monis held further protests outside the studios of Channel 7 in Martin Place, oppo-site the Lindt Café, complaining about the ‘Muslim doctors’ program which had been broadcast in July 2007. Monis also made another complaint to the ACMA. After a three-month investigation, the ACMA dismissed the complaint.

The security manager of Channel 7 later told the inquest that in 2008, he called police on several occasions and advised the network’s television hosts not to venture outside the Martin Place studio to film segments of the ‘Sunrise’ program.35 Monis was often observed in the area handing out flyers headlined ‘War on Islam’. On one occasion in 2008 when the television hosts were signing autographs, Monis ran up the Martin Place and shouted abuse at the ‘Sunrise’ host David Koch.36

Between July–August 2008, Monis wrote a series of letters to the then Qantas chief executive officer, claiming recent mechanical faults on airliners were the result of terrorist sabotage. Monis’ letter was later sent to the National Security hotline which referred the matter to ASIO, the AFP and all state and territory police forces. On 21 August 2008, ASIO concluded a review and noted ‘no information to suggest [Monis] had been engaged, or [is] likely to engage, in politically motivated violence’ and assessed that Monis ‘has not been in regular contact with individuals of security concern and his main contacts are unlikely to be of security interest’.37

In late September 2008, Monis issued a statement on his website in support of the mujahidin in Pakistan, in which he said that he hoped ‘one day I will be able to Jihad in the higher levels as you do’.

On 3 September 2008, Mr Monis changed the name of one of his companies from ‘Australian United Muslim Clerics’ to ‘Hezbollah Australia’. Hezbollah (‘Party of Allah’) was also the name of the Shi’a Islamist militant group and political party based in Lebanon. No connection has ever been established between Monis and the Islamist group Hezbollah. On 6 November 2008, ‘Hezbollah Australia’ sent a letter to the then Commonwealth Attorney General and copies to the then Prime Minister, the Opposition Leader, Foreign Minister and ASIO, stating that the group was now registered in Australia and hoped to begin activity as an Islamic organisation.

On 9 November 2008, four of the Islamist radicals convicted of the Bali bombings were executed. On the same day, Monis sent a letter to the families of the Bali bombers describing them as ‘martyrs’. Monis claimed that the actions of the Australian Government made the country ‘unsafe’ and he ‘promised’ Muslims would attack Australia and that Australians would be killed. He sent a media release to various outlets, the Saudi Embassy in Australia, the Australian Embassy in Jakarta and Buckingham Palace.

On Christmas Day 2008, Monis used the opportunity of a family gathering to propose to Anastasia Droudis. Within a month of their engagement, they announced that they had married in a private ceremony at a mosque in Queensland.

On 18 November 2008, a DVD featuring Droudis warning of threats to Australians was sent to the Queen. The AFP briefed the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions but no offences were identified. On 5 December 2008, an analysis by ASIO of the results of the investigation of Monis found that there was no information to indicate that Monis or any of his known associates in Australia and overseas were of security concern, Monis was not involved in any politically motivated violence or promotion of communal violence and the ‘www.sheikhharon.com’ website did not pose any significant security threat. The report concluded: ‘While [Monis] endeavours to use language that is ambiguous and open to interpretation, he makes sure not to cross lines and tries to ensure he can protect himself from allegations of inciting terrorism’.38

In 2008, Australia had begun withdrawing its troops from Iraq. In April 2008, United Kingdom forces left Basra, signifying the end of combat operations.

2009

On 31 July 2009, Australia concluded its military commitment in Iraq, leaving only personnel in non-combat roles.

On 12 March 2009, the United States Secret Service contacted the AFP after Monis sent the United States broadcaster NBC a DVD which purported to include a ‘fatwa’ against President Obama. The Secret Service was advised that Monis was not considered a credible threat to the president. In 2009, Monis registered a warehouse off Canterbury Road in Campsie with the Office of Fair Trading as a prayer hall which he called Darul Ifta (‘The House of Mufti’). On 1 July 2009, Monis gave a lecture in Farsi to an audience at the Nabi Akram Islamic Centre, a Shi’a centre in Granville in western Sydney in which he said:

‘Your intelligence service is not working. There’s criminal activity in your country’.39

During the inquest, Channel 7 investigative journalist David Richardson testified that after a 2009 television story about Monis sending letters to the families of fallen Australian soldiers, Channel 7 decided to look more closely at Monis. Mr Richardson told the inquest that over six months, an investigation of various companies and addresses associated with Monis failed to find any confirmation from the Iranian community that Monis was a real sheikh or that he belonged to any particular mosque or recognised Islamic organisation.40 Indeed, it appeared that leading Muslim figures held

Monis in contempt. In August 2009, the expos'e was aired on the ‘Today Tonight’ pro-gram, in which Monis was described as a ‘fake sheikh’. Monis complained to Channel 7 and to the ACMA, claiming that the program had ‘insulted’ Muslims and had invaded his privacy and ‘caused danger to his life’.41 The ACMA found that although one aspect of Monis’ complaint was justified, the statement was not significantly inaccurate and that Channel 7 and the ‘Today Tonight’ program were not required to take any further action. It has been speculated that Monis’ many complaints against Channel 7 which he published on his website indicate a vendetta and that the Lindt Café was chosen as the site of his final protest because it was located opposite the studio of Channel 7 in Sydney.

On 16 October 2009, Monis reported to the New South Wales Police Force and the AFP that his residence had been attacked in an attempt to kill him but his attackers were unable to locate him. The AFP invited Monis to attend an interview, but he did not accept. On 17 October 2009, Monis sent the New South Wales Police Force a media release raising the possibility of a terrorist attack in Australia.

On 20 October 2009, the AFP executed a search warrant at Monis’ home in Croydon Park home in Sydney’s inner-west and subsequently charged him with seven counts of offences related to the use of a postal service to menace, harass or cause offence. The offences related to the letters Monis wrote between November 2007 and August 2009. Monis was released on bail with reporting conditions.

On 22 October 2009, at the request of the NSW Joint Counter Terrorism Team, the Internet service provider removed Monis’ ‘sheikhharon’ website. On 3 December 2009, less than two months later, Monis’ website was back online with a service provider in Hong Kong.42 Monis continued to post items on the website up to the day before the siege.

On 23 October 2009, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was reported to have said that the prosecution of Monis could lead to major citizenship law changes. The Prime Minister was quoted to have said that the contents of Monis’ letters would make ‘stomachs turn’.43 On 2 November 2009, after the first day of his bail hearing at the Downing Centre, Monis chained himself to a railing outside the court house holding small Australian flags. He stayed there the entire day in front of the media holding the small flags in one hand and a sign above his head calling for Australian troops to be brought home from Iraq and Afghanistan. During the inquest, Monis’ solicitor Chris Murphy reported that, outside court after the case was heard, Monis ignored his instructions not to talk to the media and later chained himself to the building. Mr Murphy was reported to have said: ‘He didn’t strike me as very intelligent. He was entirely self-absorbed with his performance, my recollection is he held a pen in the air and said “this is my sword”’.44 Mr Murphy was also reported to have claimed that Monis was considered to be a ‘pest’ by some lawyers and that he and other lawyers later declined to act for him. On 3 November 2009, after his bail was continued, Monis again chained himself outside the court.

On 11 November 2009 (Remembrance Day), Monis addressed assembled journalists outside the court and strongly criticised Australia’s military presence in Afghanistan. Referring to a comment reportedly made by the Prime Minister that he could not ‘stomach’ the allegations, Monis was reported to have said: ‘I ask Mr Kevin Rudd, did your stomach turn when you read the news about killing innocent Afghan civilians?’45 Monis then produced a second Australian flag and a length of chain which he draped around himself.

Monis later faxed the Prime Minister, claiming that the Victorian bushfires were ‘God’s punishment because the Australian Government did not oppose the execution of the Bali bombers’. He also claimed that the Australian Government was ‘hacking’ the Google website to give Muslims a ‘bad name’.

On 25 and 27 November 2009, Monis staged further protests outside the Downing Centre including holding up a sign which read: ‘Australians don’t want war’. On 3 December 2009, Monis was photographed in front of Christmas decorations at an antiIsrael demonstration in Martin Place.

2010

On 8 January 2010, Monis began receiving Austudy benefits, having enrolled to complete a Bachelor of Criminology and Criminal Justice degree through Open Universities accredited by the Griffith University in Queensland. In January 2010, Monis posted a video on YouTube claiming that he had sent a letter to the United Kingdom Prime Minister related to the death of British soldiers in Afghanistan. On 19 January 2010 and again on 2 February 2010, after he attended court hearings, Monis protested in front of the media on the steps of the Downing Centre.

The Coroner noted that in the last decade of his life, Monis attended a number of doctors, psychologists and psychiatrists, presented at public hospitals on at least two occasions, attended a community mental health service and was assessed on two occasions in custody by Justice Health and Forensic Mental Health services.46 It was notable that Monis consulted different health care providers without disclosing his history of earlier presentations, and he often gave differing accounts of complaints and symptoms. On 17 April 2010, after he was reported to have collapsed in a shopping centre car park in Ashfield, an inner-western suburb of Sydney, and complained of weakness and dizziness, Monis was taken by ambulance to

Canterbury Hospital for an assessment. Monis told a non-medical mental health clinician that for the past five years, he experienced pain all over his body when he was stressed and that he was often unable to use his arms and legs. The clinician described Monis as ‘quite guarded and reluctant to disclose too much information’. Monis reported that he believed people were watching him and that he was discriminated against at airports. He reported that he did not use his Medicare card because he was worried that people who had access to his medical records would see that he had been prescribed medication and would assume he had a mental illness. After Monis would not provide a phone number or a street address, an appointment was made for him to attend two days later for an outpatient appointment with community mental health psychiatrist Dr Kristen Barrett.

On 10 May 2010, when he was first interviewed by Dr Barrett, Monis said that he had been forced to close his spiritual business, was $20,000 in debt and had to change his name for ‘security reasons’. Monis told Dr

Barrett that he was being constantly watched by ASIO and the police and that some people could read his mind. Dr Barrett made a provisional diagnosis of ‘chronic schizophrenia’ and prescribed a low dose of risperidone, an anti-psychotic medication. Dr Barrett said Monis agreed to take the medication and appeared to improve as she saw him at regular follow-up appointments.

Four months later, when Monis reported symptoms of anxiety, Dr Barrett also prescribed the anti-anxiety medication sertraline. Over the course of six months, Monis reported that he had decided to reduce the amount of medication and then stop the medication altogether. Dr Barrett reported to the inquest that over seven consultations, she never had any concerns that Monis had developed any violent ideation. The inquest heard no evidence confirming that the medications prescribed by Dr Barrett were ever dispensed to Monis.

Whilst he was attending Dr Barrett in 2010 and 2011, Monis did not disclose that he also attended Dr Murray on two occasions. Dr Barrett and Dr Murray both told the inquest they were surprised to learn Monis had been seeing another psychiatrist. During the inquest, Dr Murray agreed that a patient telling different stories to two different psychiatrists suggested ‘manipulation’ and that Monis was possibly ‘diagnosis-shopping’. Dr Murray recalled the dramatic transformation when Monis attended five years after the first consultation in 2005, by which time he had changed his name and, instead of a suit, he wore the flowing robes and cloth headpiece of an Islamic cleric. During the inquest, Dr Murray expressed his surprise that Monis had been seeing another psychiatrist who had reached a starkly different diagnostic conclusion.

In 2010, in the context of being charged with the postal offences, Monis also had two consultations with psychologist Kasim Abaie, who grew up in Iran and spoke several languages, including Farsi. The psychologist told the inquest that Monis described anxiety and depression. The psychologist described Monis as ‘controlling’ and would only speak to him in English. Monis told the psychologist that he was stressed living alone but that it was ‘dangerous’ for him to visit his two daughters in Iran. Although Monis attended the psychologist wearing the robes of a ‘sheikh’, his demeanour and angry complaints were unlike what the psychologist was familiar with from his previous interactions with Muslim clerics. The psychologist told the inquest that Monis said he needed a report to exclude any mental illness. However, from the two brief consultations, the psychologist formed the impression that Monis exhibited ‘delusional thinking’, that he believed he was being followed by ASIO and the police and that people could read his mind. After providing the report for Monis’ general practitioner, the psychologist had no further contact with Monis.

On 11 May 2010, Monis was charged with a further six postal services offences. In July 2010, Monis pleaded not guilty to the postal offences. On 15 November 2010, Monis filed civil proceedings in the New South Wales Supreme Court seeking a declaration that the provision under which he was charged was ‘invalid’ under the constitution.

On 23 November 2010, in the context of the royal visit to Australia as part of the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting, the AFP identified Monis as a person of interest given his apparent fixation on Australian high-office holders and assessed that Monis may attempt to embarrass the Australian Government and was likely to come to the attention of the police. In 2010, when Monis approached Amnesty International, his request for assistance was declined.47 An Amnesty International official who met Monis in 2010 described his ‘delusional selfimportance’ including his outrage that the Queen did not personally respond to a letter he wrote her: ‘It was very much like he was standing on a soapbox [and] painting himself as a noble victim’.48

2011

On 8 April 2011, the High Court refused an application by Monis to have his constitutional challenge removed to the High Court.49 French CJ, Gummow and Crennan JJ held that an order for removal of Monis’ matter to the High Court would interrupt the processes of the lower courts and deny the High Court the benefit of the reasons of the lower courts on constitutional issues. The High Court also held that Monis’ application raised no constitutional issues that required an urgent decision of the High Court.

On 11 April 2011, Monis applied to quash the indictments relating to the postal charges, arguing that the case against him was ‘political’ and that it infringed the implied ‘constitutional freedom’ of public communication. On 18 April 2011, the New South Wales District Court dismissed the motion to have the indictments quashed,50 and, on 6 December 2011, an appeal from the decision of the District Court was dismissed by the New South Wales Court of Criminal Appeal.51

It was reported that on 3 July 2011, Monis attended a conference hosted by Hizbut Tahrir (Arabic for ‘Party of Liberation’).52 Hizbut Tahrir is an international, non-violent panIslamic political organization, founded by Sunni Muslim scholars in Jerusalem in 1953, which aims to re-establish the Islamic ‘Khilafah’ (caliphate) which would enforce Shariah law. Despite being banned in Germany, Russia, China, Egypt, Turkey and most Arab countries, Hizb ut-Tahrir is not banned in many western countries, including the United Kingdom and Australia. Monis did not address the conference.

On 18 June 2011, Noleen Pal separated from Monis. Within days of the separation, Monis reported that his eldest son had been indecently assaulted by Pal’s father. Police who investigated determined that the allegations against the maternal grandfather were false and had been made by Monis with the intention of securing custody of the children.

On 22 July 2011, two days after a late-night confrontation with Monis in the carpark of a fast-food restaurant in Green Valley in western Sydney, Pal reported to police that in the context of disputes over access to his children, Monis had threatened her. She reported that Monis became abusive and said: ‘If I can’t see the kids more than I am now, you’re going to pay, even if I have to shoot you’.

On 27 July 2011, after he was questioned at St Marys Police Station, Monis was charged with stalking or intimidating intending to cause fear of physical or mental harm. A provisional order was made by the police, and an apprehended domestic violence order was made by the court, and Monis was granted bail. On 9 August 2011, Monis commenced custody proceedings against Pal. The effect of the court proceedings was that Monis was deprived of seeing his two sons from July 2011 until after interim orders for supervised access were made in the Federal Magistrates Court on 27 October 2011.

On 21 October 2011, President Obama announced that United States troops would leave Iraq by the end of the year. On 18 December 2011, the last United States combat troops withdrew from Iraq.

2012

In January 2012, Pal told a Sydney Magistrates Court that she was concerned for her safety and she believed that Monis held a gun licence. New South Wales Police later confirmed that the Firearms Registry did not have any record of Monis ever holding a gun licence in the state.

On 27 May 2012, Monis, who was by that time living with Droudis and her family, began subleasing a flat in an apartment building in the western Sydney suburb of Werrington which became the address at which his two children were dropped off and collected after the Sunday access visits. Transcripts of the domestic violence hearing in the Campbelltown Local Court during May 2012 documented Pal’s claims of Monis’ controlling behaviour, his insistence that she not leave the home, that she surrender her mobile phone and pull the blinds at all times. Pal also claimed that in 2010 they separated after Monis had attacked her and had also beaten the elder of their two sons. However, the magistrate found that Pal’s evidence seemed ‘somewhat evasive’, and on 30 May 2012, the charge against Monis was dismissed.

Although New South Wales police made an application for a final apprehended domestic violence order, the court declined to make the order. In July 2012, Monis’ application to renew his security licence was refused on the grounds that he was not a ‘fit and proper person’.

On 9 June 2012, Monis attended protests organised by Hizb ut-Tahrir outside the Iranian, Saudi and Turkish embassies demonstrating against those countries which supported the regime of Syrian President Bashar Hafez al-Assad, whose army and mostly Alawite shabiha militia received direct support from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards and Lebanese Shi’a Hezbollah.

On 5 July 2012, Monis wrote to the presiding Federal Magistrate to advise that he wanted to withdraw his proceedings against Pal. On 27 July 2012, Monis failed to appear at the listed hearing, and on 24 August 2012, final orders were made granting full custody of the children to Pal. Monis was given access only on every second Sunday between 10 am and 4 pm. Monis later posted a website entry:

Man Haron Monis … has continuously been under attack and false accusation by the Australian government and media since he started his political letter campaign from 2007. … His children have been taken away from him by the Australian government … he is not allowed to visit or even call them.

During 2012, Monis began associating with the Rebels Outlaw Motorcycle Gang (OMCG). He attempted to become a full member of the club and began attending Friday evening social gatherings at the Mt Druitt clubhouse. In September 2012, a female friend took out a loan for nearly $25,000 to enable Monis to purchase a Harley Davidson motorcycle.

2013

During the subsequent trial of Monis’ partner Droudis, the court heard evidence that in early 2013, on two occasions, Monis approached members of the Rebels bikies club soliciting assistance in having his ex-wife killed.53 On 13 January 2013, during a child access visit, Monis drove to his ex-wife’s residence, accompanied by two bikies on their motorcycles. Monis’ ex-wife’s mother was so concerned that she contacted the police to report how intimidated she felt. During Droudis’ subsequent trial, Johnson J held: ‘I accept the unchallenged evidence that Monis solicited members of the Rebels OMCG in early 2013 to kill [Noleen Pal]. The evidence is that these requests were not taken seriously and were rejected summarily’.54

On 27 February 2013, after a two-day hearing in October 2012 on an application on the question of constitutional validity of the postal offences, the Full Court of the High Court arrived at a split judgement.55 As a consequence, the earlier decision of the New South Wales Court of Appeal that the provision was valid was affirmed.

On 18 April 2013, Monis was reported to have attended a rally protesting against the Syrian regime of al-Assad. The AFP reviewed Monis as part of the project identifying people who may be involved with or connected with the conflict in Syria and Iraq and concluded that there was nothing to suggest that Monis had any links to any person or organisation involved in the conflict.

On 10 April 2013, Monis took out home contents insurance, including water damage cover, on the third-floor flat he leased in Werrington. On 13 April 2013, Monis contacted friends from Iran with whom he had no communication for some years and made arrangements for a family outing during the following weekend.

During the outing with his two sons on 21 April 2013, using his mobile phone, Monis created 14 separate video clips, many of which filmed clocks or Monis recording himself at a place distant from his Werrington unit. Upon leaving the Penrith public swimming pool, Monis’ children got into his friend’s vehicle. At 3:56 pm, Monis recorded a 27-second video clip which showed his sons seated in the rear of his friend’s vehicle and Monis entering the driver’s seat of his Jeep Cherokee in which he was travelling on his own.

At approximately 4 pm, Monis’ ex-wife Noleen Pal arrived at the flat to collect her two sons who were then aged seven and four. She activated the intercom, and the security door was opened to allow her entry to the ground floor stairwell. It was later alleged at her trial that Droudis, dressed in a black niqab, waited in the stairwell and stabbed Pal 18 times, then doused her in petrol and set her alight. At the same time as his ex-wife was being murdered, Monis staged a minor motor vehicle accident in which he drove into the rear of a parked vehicle 240 metres away from the Penrith Police Station. A subsequent investigation by the Metropolitan Crash Investigation Unit found that the movements of the Jeep driven by Monis were ‘highly consistent with the intentional actions of a cognisant driver’56 and concluded that the crash was the result of a ‘driver commanded divergence’.57

At the crash scene, although Monis complained of chest pains, he asked his friends to attend the nearby police station to report the accident. After Monis had been taken to the Nepean Hospital, police arrived and filmed an interview in which Monis appeared to be shocked when he was advised that his ex-wife had been murdered. Monis complained of chest pain and a ‘racing heart’ and terminated the interview with police. During Droudis’ subsequent trial, Johnson J held ‘I am satisfied that Monis’ intentional collision with a parked vehicle fortifies a conclusion that his actions that day involved an elaborate charade to prove that he was not at Werrington that afternoon, and particularly after 4.00pm’.58

On 22 April 2013, upon application by Pal’s parents, a Family Law Recovery Order was issued by the Federal Circuit Court with respect to the two children, and on 23 April 2013, the Order was served upon Monis who was advised that the children were to be returned to their maternal grandparents.

On 29 May 2013, Monis and Droudis attended the Parramatta Police Station and made a complaint that Pal’s father had threatened to kill Monis and also maintained the earlier allegation that Monis’ former father-in-law had sexually abused one of Monis’ children.

On 20 August 2013, a clinical psychologist with the NSW Police Forensic Services Group Behavioural Science Team was given access to police records and correspondence to complete a psychological assessment of Monis. Although she qualified her opinion by emphasising that she had not actually interviewed Monis, in her evidence to the inquest, the psychologist opined that Monis was grandiose, arrogant, lacking in empathy and preoccupied with his own self-importance and that these features were consistent with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). In her report which was tendered at the inquest, the psychologist added that individuals with NPD often have a fragile sense of self-esteem, which makes them respond badly to criticism.59

On 5 August 2013, Monis pleaded guilty to postal services offences and was convicted on 12 counts. On 6 September 2013, after describing the offences as ‘deplorable’ and noting that the maximum sentence for such offences was two years imprisonment, the sentencing judge sentenced Monis to 300 hours of community service, a two-year good behaviour bond and a $1000 surety.

In the week after the Abbott government was elected on 7 September 2013, Monis wrote to the Prime Minister inviting him to participate in a live debate in which Monis said he would ‘prove that Australia and Australians will be attacked’ as a result of the participation of Australia in the war in Afghanistan. However, Australia had begun withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan much earlier, in October 2008, and the efforts of the Australian Reconstruction Task Force were concentrated on ‘capacity building and mentoring’ of the Afghan National Army.60 By August 2009, combat operations by Australian troops in Afghanistan had ended. On 28 October 2013, during a surprise visit to the Australian base in Tarin Kot, Uruzgan province, Prime Minister Abbott announced the withdrawal of all Australian troops from Afghanistan.61 By the time of the Lindt Café siege in December 2014, there were no Australian combat troops in Iraq, and the small Australian contingent in Afghanistan were involved only in training of the Afghan National Army.

On 1 November 2013, less than a week after the Prime Minister’s announcement in Afghanistan, Monis again wrote to Mr Abbott arguing that Australia’s policy in Afghanistan had ‘a significant role in jeopardising security and peace in the world especially in Australia’ and challenged the Prime Minister to a debate about the war in Afghanistan. Two weeks later, on 15 November 2013, police arrested Monis and Droudis. Droudis was charged with murder and Monis was charged with inciting, procuring, aiding and counselling Droudis to murder his ex-wife and assisting and harbouring Droudis after the murder.

Whilst in custody, Monis asked two different fellow remandees on different occasions for their assistance in making connections with criminal elements who could assist in murdering his ex-wife’s father.62 Monis suggested to these prisoners that payment for the killing could come from items of value stolen from the premises of the proposed victim.

During the subsequent trial, Droudis’ defence counsel did not contest the Crown case that Monis organised the murder. On 3 November 2016, the trial judge, who heard the case without a jury, held that the overwhelming evidence was that Monis had planned the murder and had gone to ‘incredible lengths’ to establish an alibi on the afternoon of the murder. Referring to Monis’ report to police of thefts of his property and his false insurance claims arising from smoke and water damage to his flat, Johnson J found: ‘strong support for a conclusion that Monis planned the murder [and devised] a false theft scenario in the process. It provides support, as well, for a conclusion that Monis did not hire a killer to whom he had paid or owed money for the killing’.63

On 15 November 2013, following his arrest, Monis did not apply for bail. On 12 December 2013, when he appeared before a magistrate in the Penrith Local Court, Monis claimed that the Iranian Secret Police and ASIO were trying to frame him for the murder of his ex-wife.64 The prosecutor told the court that Monis went to ‘extreme and elaborate lengths’ to create an alibi and that Monis deliberately filmed a clock while asking somebody for the time at a Penrith public swimming pool before the murder and faked a car crash outside Penrith Police station so that he would be taken to Nepean Hospital.

During the inquest, the NSW Director of Public Prosecutions was granted leave to appear before the inquest and questioned whether an examination of Monis’ history of bail applications was within the scope of the inquest.65 The Commonwealth supported the submissions made by the Director of Public Prosecution. The NSW Director of Public Prosecutions also claimed ‘legal professional privilege’ over communications between legal officers and police officers involved in Monis’ prosecution. On 5 June 2015, in dismissing the application by the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Coroner held that ‘had the Inquest not examined this issue, there would have been no independent public examination of the response of prosecuting authorities to Monis’ application for grant of bail – matters of considerable concern’.66 In his findings, the Coroner referred to the transcript of bail proceedings on 12 December 2013 and noted:

• the solicitor employed by the NSW Director of Public Prosecutions failed to advise the magistrate that Monis had been on bail for the Commonwealth postal offences at the time of the alleged murder
• the solicitor erroneously advised the magistrate that Monis did not have to show ‘exceptional circumstances’ before Monis could be granted bail when the relevant section of the Bail Act in fact imposed such an onus
• the fact that Monis had an alibi was irrelevant (the Crown did not allege that Monis was present at the scene of the alleged murder)
• Monis lacked ties to the community (Monis’ children were in the care of their grandparents, he had no other family members in Australia, his passport had been returned to him and he had communicated with an Iranian woman about meeting her in Malaysia)
• Monis posed a flight risk

The magistrate held that the Crown’s case was ‘weak’ and that both Monis and Droudis had advised the court they had alibis, and Monis was granted conditional bail.67 No application was made to the New South Wales Supreme Court to review the bail decision, and on 17 December 2013, Monis was released from custody.

During an interview with the ABC, lawyer Emanuell Conditsis, who represented Monis after he was remanded into custody in November 2013, said Monis had described a very unpleasant experience whilst he was in custody.68 Mr Conditsis reported that on one occasion when he visited, Monis broke down and cried ‘like a baby’ because of how he was being treated in Silverwater prison. During a subsequent interview with BBC Radio 4, Mr Conditis further embellished Monis’ account: ‘What he said happened is that he was placed into a cell which had a concrete bed, they removed the mattress, there was excrement thrown around the walls and the floor – not by inmates, according to him, but by prison guards. He was then forced to stand in and about the excrement and every time he tried to sit down over a period of 24 hours he would be bashed’.69 Mr Conditsis later said that the Lindt Café siege was not the work of an organised terrorist group: ‘This was a oneoff random individual. It was not a concerted terrorism event or act. It was a damaged-goods individual who did something outrageous’.

2014

On 22 January 2014, in an application to vary his bail conditions, Monis appeared at Parramatta Local Court. After informing the magistrate that he was representing himself, Monis began referring to documents that he claimed showed ASIO ‘conspired’ to have him imprisoned. The magistrate told Monis that she had no power to order the release of documents held by ASIO and advised Monis to desist because the submissions he was making would ‘harm’ his defence. Following the adjournment, Monis staged a protest outside the court and wore chains and held a sign: ‘I have been tortured in prison for my political letters’. Monis was quoted by the media as saying: ‘This is not a criminal case. This is a political case’.70

In February 2014, during the course of criminal investigations into Monis, New South Wales Police sought through INTERPOL Canberra a copy of Monis’ criminal history. On 31 March 2014, INTERPOL Tehran advised that, whilst Monis did not have a criminal record in Iran, he was wanted for ‘defrauding Iranian citizens’ but the arrest warrant had lapsed.

On 14 April 2014, Monis was arrested and charged with sexual intercourse without consent and two counts of indecent assault relating to incidents alleged in 2002 and was denied bail. During the bail application,

Monis requested that the Kogarah Local Court investigate his allegation that the New South Wales Police Force and ASIO were involved in the murder of his former partner. Monis also compared the accusations of sexual assault against him to the allegations made against Julian Assange, founder of the whistle-blowing website ‘Wikileaks’. On 16 April 2014, Monis was refused bail.

On 26 May 2014, the magistrate found that Monis did not pose an ‘unacceptable risk’ to the safety of any individuals or the community or of interfering with witnesses. The magistrate highlighted that Monis had limited criminal history and no history of violence and had not committed any serious offences whilst on bail. Perversely, the magistrate also highlighted Monis’ ‘strong community ties’. Notwithstanding the submissions made by the Director of Public Prosecutions, the magistrate granted bail, and Monis was released with daily reporting conditions. On 18 July 2014 and again on 31 July 2014, Monis’ bail was continued without objection by the Director of Public Prosecutions.71

On the two occasions when he was remanded into custody, Monis was subject to the standard reception screening assessments by the Justice Health and Forensic Mental Health Services. On the first screening assessment in November 2013 after he was charged with offences relating to the murder of his exwife, Monis was cleared as being fit for the correctional centre community. On the second assessment which occurred in April 2014 after he was charged with the sexual assault offences, Monis was again cleared as having no mental health issues and was found to be fit for normal mainstream cell placement. During both assessments, Monis did not disclose any history of mental health issues. In January and February 2014, after he was released on bail, Monis attended three different general practitioners complaining of depression and insomnia. The Coroner observed that whilst each general practitioner made referrals to psychiatrists, there was no evidence that Monis ever followed up with any these referrals.72

On 27 June 2014, Monis attended a lecture at the Lakemba headquarters of Hizb utTahrir. Although he was photographed sitting in the front row of the audience, Monis did not address the audience. It was reported that in July 2014, Monis was photographed in conversation with Hizb ut-Tahrir spokesperson Ismail al-Wahwah in front of the Egyptian consulate in Surry Hills during a protest against the military crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. However, as the Coroner noted, Hizb ut-Tahrir was not a proscribed terrorist organisation in Australia and actually denies the legitimacy of Islamic State.73 Conversely, Islamic State considers Hizb ut-Tahrir an obstacle to its aspirations and strongly opposes it. No account of the nature of any conversations Monis may have had with al-Wahwah or anybody else associated with Hizb ut-Tahrir has ever been reported.

Following the death of his predecessor Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, on 16 May 2010, Ibrahim Awad Ibrahim al-Badri, who had taken the name Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (‘The One from Baghdad’) claimed leadership of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. After the withdrawal of United States troops from Iraq in 2011, Prime Minister al-Maliki closely identified with the Shi’a population which further alienated the Sunnis, many of whom gravitated towards Islamic State.74 After its initial military successes in Syria, the forces of Islamic State swept into northern Iraq and eventually gained control over an area larger than Great Britain with more than six million inhabitants. On 12 June 2014, after 30,000 well-armed Iraqi forces fled, leaving massive quantities of arms and munitions,75 fewer than 1000 Islamic State fighters captured Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq, and summarily executed and dismembered the Imam of the Grand Mosque.76 Less than a week later, 12 local Imams were also executed in front of the Al Israa Mosque. On 4 July 2014, al-Baghdadi ascended the prayer niche in the Grand Mosque and declared himself ‘caliph’77 (religious and political leader of the Muslim community).78

In August 2014, after Islamic State had seized the Kurdish city of Sinjar and committed genocide against the minority Yazidi population, United States President Obama ordered airstrikes to assist the Iraqi Government forces and the Kurdish Peshmerga. As reprisals, Islamic State released videos of the beheading of captured American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff.

On 13 September 2014, Australia’s terrorist alert level was raised to ‘high’, meaning the risk of an attack was ‘likely’, but not ‘imminent’. Prime Minister Abbott said that whilst the government had ‘no specific intelligence’ of a plot to mount a terrorist attack, security agencies had recommended the increased threat level because of the number of Australians ‘fighting with and supporting’ terrorist groups in the Middle East.79

On 18 September 2014, nearly 500 New South Wales police and 300 AFP officers mobilised for pre-dawn raids on 15 homes in 12 western Sydney suburbs in ‘Operation Appleby’ which was reported to have foiled a plot to ‘commit violent acts’ in Australia. Although it was luridly reported that the extremists planned to make a video of ‘beheading’,80 it was later alleged only that a police phone intercept had overheard Mohammad Ali Baryalei, a former Kings Cross bouncer who had gone to fight in Syria in 2013, urging 22-year-old Omarjan Azari to recruit ‘boys with heart’ to commit terrorist attacks, adding that ‘British and French backpackers should be targeted’.81

On 19 September 2014, during a community rally in the Sydney suburb of Lakemba organised by Hizb ut-Tahrir to protest against the overnight arrests of those suspected of having links to Islamic State, Monis was photographed wearing a white robe and an Islamic headband.

On 22 September 2014, a lengthy video address and a written English translation attributed to Islamic State spokesperson Abu Muhammad al-Adnani were released which called for ‘muwahhidın in Europe, America, Australia, and Canada’ and across the world to defend the Islamic State against the ‘dozens of nations … gathered against it’:

If you can kill a disbelieving American or European – especially the spiteful and filthy French – or an Australian, or a Canadian, or any other disbeliever from the disbelievers waging war, including the citizens of the countries that entered into a coalition against the Islamic State, then rely upon Allah, and kill him in any manner or way however it may be.

Do not ask for anyone’s advice and do not seek anyone’s verdict. Kill the disbeliever whether he is civilian or military, for they have the same ruling. Both of them are disbelievers.

On 9 October 2014, the Canberra office of the Federal Attorney-General received a letter from Monis under the name ‘Sheikh Haron’:

I would like to send a letter to Caliph Ibrahim, the leader of the Islamic State, in which (sic) making some comments and asking some questions. Please advise me whether the communication is legal or illegal.

It is unlikely to be coincidental that at that time, police investigations were continuing into further allegations by a number of women who had attended Monis’ ‘Spiritual Healing’ business. The following day, on 10 October 2014, Monis was charged with 37 additional sex offences, including 22 counts of aggravated sexual assault and 14 counts of aggravated indecent assault in relation to six women. The charges were initiated by serving a court attendance notice rather than by arresting Monis. The Coroner was later critical of this decision which increased the likelihood that Monis’ bail would continue.82 The Coroner noted that in no instance was an application made to review or revisit the grants of bail made in favour of Monis: ‘there were deficiencies in the way prosecutions dealt with the question of bail for the sex charges, including not even opposing bail when the most numerous and serious of those charges came before the court’.83 The Coroner concluded:

As charges against him accumulated, a reassessment of the risk Monis posed was warranted. Instead, with the prosecution’s consent, his bail on the initial murder and sex charges was extended, and the fresh sex charges were looked at in isolation.84

In examining whether the outcome would have been different if Monis’ bail applications had been handled differently, the Coroner highlighted that the inquest ‘necessarily focussed on mistakes and missed opportunities’ and concluded: ‘at times ODPP [Office of the NSW Director of Public Prosecutions] lawyers did not approach Monis’ bail application in the most effective way, and that investigating officers made some mistakes that affected the question of bail and then missed opportunities to correct them’.85

Between 2010 and 2014, Monis received eight separate grants of legal aid funding.

In October 2014, the Family Court granted full custody of Monis’ two children to their maternal grandparents.

On 17 November 2014, Monis posted a brief statement in Arabic on his website:

I pledge my allegiance to God, his Messenger, and the Caliphate of the Muslims. Peace be upon the Commander of the faithful and the Caliph of the Muslims, the Imam/preacher of our time.

In the month before the siege, Monis established a Twitter account and posted 157 Tweets, several of which contained links to videos including confronting images of the bodies of children lying in ruined buildings. In the first week of December 2014, Monis posted a photo of dead children on his Facebook page which was captioned ‘evidence for terrorism in America and its allies including Australia, the result of their airstrikes’. Monis also made an obscure post on his website which has been interpreted to suggest that he had converted from Shi’a to Sunni Islam: ‘I used to be a Rafidi, but not anymore’. The Arabic word ‘Rafidi’ can be translated as ‘rejectionist’ or ‘heretic’ and is sometimes used by Sunni Muslims as a derogatory term for Shi’ite Muslims.

On 6 December 2014, Monis posted on Twitter: ‘Islam is the religion of peace, thats why Muslims fight against the terrorism of America and its allies’. On 8 December 2014, Monis posted: ‘This is team Islam against Australian oppression and terrorism’. On 9 December 2014, Monis posted ‘Shame on those racist and terrorist Australians who support the governments of America and its allies’.

Between 9 and 12 December 2014, the National Security Hotline received 18 calls and emails related to Monis drawing attention to his Facebook page. All of these calls and emails were referred to ASIO and the AFP, and some were also forwarded to the New South Wales Police Force. The Coroner found that whilst Monis’ Facebook page contained confronting and provocative content,86 they did not indicate a capability, desire or intent by Monis to undertake an act of ‘politically motivated action or violence by Monis’. The Coroner made further specific reference to 10 and 11 December 2014 and found nothing on Monis’ Facebook page that ‘indicated an increased level of threat or imminent plans for politically motivated action or violence’.87 The Coroner concluded:

There was frequent interaction between various law enforcement and security agencies and Monis in the years leading up to the siege. The response of the AFP and the NSW [Police Force] was proportionate to what they knew or should have known about Monis at the time.88

On 12 December 2014, Monis appeared in the High Court sitting in Sydney in relation to his appeal from the decision of the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal relating to the convictions for the postal offences. Monis’ application to remove the appeal to the High Court was given only cursory consideration. In a terse dismissal, the High Court held that it was not desirable to make any further comments on any preclusionary principles in relation to Monis’ case.89 It can be speculated that having exhausted his options for appealing his postal offences and being charged with offences related to the murder of his ex-wife and multiple sex offences, Monis may have had the very real concern that his bail may be revoked at any time.

Two days later, on 14 December 2014, the day before the siege, Monis made his final post on his website with the same photograph of the dead children he had used earlier:

Islam is the religion of peace, that’s why Muslims fight against the oppression and terrorism of USA and its allies including UK and Australia. If we stay silent towards criminals we cannot have a peaceful society. The more you fight with crime, the more peaceful you are. Islam wants peace on the Earth, that’s why Muslims want to stop terrorism of America and its allies. When you speak out against crime you have taken one step towards peace.90

On 14 December 2014, Monis’ behaviour appeared unremarkable. During the afternoon, he reported to Campsie Police Station as required by his bail conditions. He withdrew the balance of $850 from his bank account and purchased the $70 backpack which he wore during the siege. Since he was found to have only $120 in his wallet after the siege, it has been speculated that he also purchased the unregistered 1950s-era Manufrance LaSalle 12-gauge pump-action shotgun, possibly from an acquaintance he made during his association with the Rebels OMCG. The shotgun held three cartridges in the magazine and one in the breach; the butt and barrel had been crudely sawn off. The inquest did not establish what Monis did on the night before the siege or with whom, if anyone, he met or how he got to the Sydney central business district on the morning of 15 December 2014.

Definition of ‘Terrorism’ in the Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth)

Prior to the ‘9/11’ attacks in the United States, Australia had no national counter-terrorism legislation. Since 2001, the Federal Parliament has enacted over 40 new counterterrorist statutes. In July 2002, the Security Legislation Amendment (Terrorism) Act 2002 (Cth) amended the Criminal Code (Cth) to include a definition of a ‘terrorist act’.

In most criminal offences, ‘motive’ is considered distinct from the element of ‘intention’ and may, at most, be only circumstantially relevant to intention. However, motive is a key feature of the statutory definition of a ‘terrorist act’. Section 100.1 of the Criminal Code (Cth) defines ‘a terrorist act’ to be an action (or threat of action) done or made with two specific intentions:

1. the intention of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause, and
2. the intention of coercing, or influencing by intimidation, the government of the Commonwealth or a State, Territory or foreign country or intimidating the public or a section of the public

By s 100.1 (2), to constitute a terrorist act, the action must also do one (or more) of the following:

• cause serious physical harm to a person other than the offender
• cause serious damage to property
• cause death or endanger another’s life
• create a serious risk to the health or safety of the public
• seriously interfere with, disrupt or destroy an electronic system (including, but not limited to, an information system; a telecommunications system; a financial system; a system used for the delivery of essential government services; a system used for, or by, an essential public utility; or a system used for, or by, a transport system).119

By s 100.1(3), an action that is ‘advocacy, protest, dissent or industrial action’ falls outside the definition of a terrorist act.

In Lodhi v The Queen,120 the New South Wales Court of Criminal Appeal emphasised that the intentions in relation to ‘advancement’ and ‘coercion’ attach to the terrorist act itself and not to the state of mind of the accused as the accused was engaged in the conduct which constitutes the offence. Spigelman CJ emphasised (at [90]) that the references to ‘intention’ in the definition of ‘terrorist act’ were not fault elements of the offence, but rather they identified the character of the action or threat of action that fell within the definition of ‘terrorist act’ and the prosecution was not required to particularise the person who had the relevant ‘intention’ because the identity of that person may not be known.121 As at February 2015, 45 men, almost all of whom identified as Muslim, had been charged under Australia’s terrorism laws for preparatory conduct, and 26 had been convicted.122

Typology of Domestic Terrorists

Domestic terrorist attacks can be usefully divided into one of three functional categories– directed, enabled or inspired. The co-ordinated attacks across Paris in November 2015 (the deadliest terrorist attacks on European soil since the March 2004 Madrid bombings which killed 192 people), were clearly an ‘Islamic State-directed attack’. The plot was conceived in the ‘caliphate’ and carried out by well-armed operatives, some of whom had trained in Syria.123 In an ‘enabled terrorist attack’, the attacker or attackers have direct, usually online communication with a known terrorist organisation which may include planning or logistical support and may even include the supply of weapons or bomb components.124 For example, in April 2017, Lebanese-Australian Khaled Khayat started communicating with an Islamic State operative in Syria and arranged for high-end military-grade explosives to be sent by air cargo from Turkey to Sydney.125 Khayat subsequently also received instructions on how to construct a bomb concealed in a kitchen meat mincer which he planned to put in his brother’s check-in luggage on an Etihad flight out of Sydney to Abu Dhabi on 15 July 2017. In the ‘inspired terrorist attack’, although the attacker, who is sometimes inexactly dubbed a ‘self-starter’, may not have direct contact with a terrorist organisation, by accessing the propaganda material, statements or directions of the organisation, the attacker is inspired to action in support of the aims of that terrorist organisation.

However, closer forensic examination of what may appear to be an ‘inspired attack’ may also reveal that the violent act was actually motivated solely by some personal issue and that the narrative that the attacker has created, or that has been created for them, are post hoc formulations.

Islamist Radicalisation

The term ‘radicalisation’ refers to the process by which beliefs and motivations change to ‘an extremist viewpoint in which an individual or group is willing to countenance or engage in violence in pursuit of their goals’.126 There is no accepted profile for the radicalised domestic Islamist terrorist.127 Innes et al have proposed a situational model of Islamist radicalisation in which various circumstances converge to create a ‘radicalization window’ in which an individual may identify with the ummah (an imagined global Muslim community) in the context of a discourse of global injustice against Muslims which is further fermented by jihadist propaganda on the Internet or social media.

The inquest heard expert opinion which cited research by Neumann, who has identified common themes in radicalisation trajectories:

• perception of grievance; for example, conflicted identities, injustice, oppression, or social exclusion, which can make an individual receptive to extremist ideas
• adoption of an extremist narrative or ideology that speaks to the grievance
• and provides a compelling rationale for what needs to be done; and
• social and group dynamics – radicalisation often occurs in a dense, small network of friends, and extremist ideas are more likely to resonate if articulated by a credible or charismatic leader.128

Further research into Islamist radicalisation has elaborated other significant factors including ‘enabling environments and support structures’129 and communication and indoctrination over the Internet and social media.130

In a study of 12 individuals convicted of terrorist-related offences in Australia, Porter and Kebbell examined a number of features including the ideas and attitudes that legitimised violence against westerners.131 An obligation to engage in ‘jihad’ (holy war) to defxend their faith ‘against infidels’ or ‘martyrdom’ (dying for jihad which brought great reward, including the forgiving of all sin and entry into paradise)132 were identified, as was the theme of ‘retaliation’ against political and military policies of the West including Australia’s troop commitments to the coalition forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. Porter and Kebbell also speculated that some individuals may also be looking for purpose, acceptance or justification for their criminal lifestyle including attitudes that support the use of violence or beliefs of superiority over the kuffar or ‘non-believers’.133

Australian Islamic State-Connected Terrorist Plots

The majority of convicted Australian jihadists have been aged between 18 and 35 at the time of their arrest, and the youngest was aged 20.134 Monis was aged 50 at the time of the Lindt Café siege. Whilst there are several Australians still awaiting trial for Islamic State-connected terrorist plots, there is a small cohort in which details of the attackers and their planning are known.

The terrorist plotters intercepted by Operation Pendennis in 2005 belonged to a selfcontained group which sought guidance from Algerian-born self-proclaimed Sunni cleric Abdul Nacer Benbrika,135 while the terrorists who plotted an attack on the Holsworthy army base in 2009 had links with Somalian al-Shabaab insurgents and had sought a ‘fatwa’ (religious edict) from a Somalian cleric.136

Abdul Numan Haider

On 23 September 2014, the day after Islamic State spokesperson al-Adnani called for muwahhidın in Europe, America, Australia and Canada, 18-year-old Abdul Numan Haider was shot dead by two counter-terrorism officers outside a Melbourne suburban police station. Having agreed to meet the officers to discuss his passport being cancelled the previous day, Haider pulled a knife and stabbed both officers before he was shot dead. The black flag on which was written the words of the shahada (‘There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is the messenger of God’) was found in Haider’s clothing. Haider and his family came to Australia as refugees from Afghanistan.137 Haider had been a good student who played sport and was popular with his peers. His family were devout Muslims, and he regularly worshipped at his local mosque in Hallam. In 2014, Haider began attending lectures at the fundamentalist Al-Furqan Centre in Springvale which was known for its strict interpretation of the Koran. Unlike at the Hallam Mosque, the lectures at the Al-Furqan Centre were politicalised and focused on the conflict in the Middle East and the fate of Muslims. Prominent Islamic State recruit Neil Prakash became associated with the Al-Furqan Centre.138 In June 2014, Haider first attracted the attention of security and law enforcement agencies and, on 31 July 2014, ASIO agents visited him in the family home and advised him not to associate with extremists. Haider was one of more than 40 Australian citizens whose passports were cancelled due to concerns that they would leave Australia to join Islamic State. The Victorian Coroner heard that, shortly before his death, Haider accessed websites containing ‘radicalised Islamic ideology’ which showed shooting executions and beheadings and contained recruitment propaganda. Haider also accessed material on his mobile phone including graphic instructions from Islamic State on how to kill and maim. A week before the attack, Haider had been seen by police at a Dandenong shopping plaza waving a black flag. When questioned, Haider told police that whilst he was ‘not going to blow up the shopping centre today’, he was angry about the recent ‘Operation Appleby’ raids across Sydney.

Omar al-Kutobi and Muhammad Kiad

In 2009, Iraqi-born Omar al-Kutobi arrived in Australia on a fake passport and was granted asylum. In 2012, Muhammad Kiad arrived in Australia on a temporary Spouse visa, having married an Australian citizen in Kuwait. In July 2013, he was granted a permanent Spouse visa. Al-Kutobi and Kiad later lived together in Fairfield and initially did not come to the attention of police or security agencies. After making contact with a person whom they believed to be an Islamic State recruiter, al-Kutobi and Kiad initially indicated an intent to travel to Syria to fight with Islamic State before turning their attention to planning a petrol bomb attack on a Shi’ite prayer centre in western Sydney. They used multiple communication devices and addresses, swore allegiance to Abu Bakr al- Baghdadi, created an Islamic State flag and made a martyrdom video before they were arrested in February 2015.139

Sevdet Besim

Sevdet Besim was born in Dandenong in January 1997. Although his Albanian-Australian parents identified as Hanafi Muslims, the family were not strict adherents to their faith.

In year 10 at high school, Besim began attending the Al-Furqan Centre where he befriended Neil Prakash and Abdul Numan Haider. Besin met with Haider only hours before Haider was shot by counter-terrorism officers on 23 September 2014. After Haider’s death, Besim decided to go to the Middle East and fight for Islamic State. When his passport application was refused, as had occurred with Haider, Basim turned his attention to plotting a domestic terrorist attack. Subsequent police analysis of Besim’s mobile phone revealed that, on 28 January 2015, he created an electronic memorandum which amounted to a bay’ah (pledge) of allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and began downloading digital editions of the Islamic State magazine Dabiq. In February 2015, Besim began using the encrypted messaging app Telegram to communicate with another terrorist, ‘S’, in the United Kingdom. In March 2015, ‘S’ sent Besim a message referring to a terrorist attack at the National Museum in Tunis, Tunisia in which 22 people were killed. Besim later began making Internet searches on the ANZAC Day commemorations to be held in Melbourne which included references to the Dawn Service, the Shrine of Remembrance and Camp Gallipoli. During his subsequent sentencing, evidence was presented that showed Besim planned to kill a police officer on ANZAC Day by deliberately running him down in his vehicle and then beheading him ‘to make sure the dogs remember this as well as [their] fallen heroes’.140 On 11 April 2015, Besim made the first of a series of social media posts in which he referred to targeting the AFP and Victorian police. On 13 April 2015, Besim made a further social media post quoting the Koran about those who had been killed in the cause of Allah and rejoicing in their death. He also accessed a video entitled ‘The Crisis of ISIS & Black Flag: A Prophetic Prediction’. On 14 April 2015, the home screen on Besim’s mobile phone featured the Islamic State flag, and on 17 April 2015, Besim completed an martyrdom message on his mobilephone which set out his reasons for his planned attack and his expectation that he would die in the course of the attack and instructions to his family on how he wished to be buried.141

In the early hours of the morning of 18 April 2015, members of the Special Operations Group arrested Besim at his family’s home in Hallam. Police searches found a Rambo knife with a 40-centimetre blade under the driver’s seat of his vehicle and a locking tactical knife in the glovebox. In the bedroom, police found a Taser disguised as a black iPhone, a large black flag containing the shahada in white Arabic writing, 10 Islamic textbooks and various Islamic documents. Analysis of various electronic items revealed an extensive Internet search history of extremist material and numerous images, audio files, videos and pdf documents.142

Farhad Jabar

Farhad Khalil Mohammad Jabar was born in Iran of Iraqi-Kurdish descent in January 2000. He was described by his year 10 classmates at Arthur Phillip High School in Sydney as a quiet, often upset-looking solitary youth who was occasionally bullied. He accessed social media via his Arabic name, Abu Zaid. On 2 October 2015, he was aged only 15 when he attended the Parramatta Mosque as he had done frequently. He changed into black robes before walking to the nearby police headquarters where he shot dead civilian police administrator Curtis Cheng. A bloodied suicide note was found on Jabar’s body which featured standard jihadist phrases.143 Jabar’s sister Shadi, who drafted the suicide note, left Australia the day before the attack and was reported to have been killed in a United States airstrike in Syria in the following year along with her Sudaneseborn Islamic State jihadist husband.

All these Islamic State-connected terrorist plots in Australia shared similarities in their preparation, methods and targets, and all demonstrated a clear Islamic State-inspired terrorist intent. Haider and Jabar attacked outside a police station, Besim planned to behead a police officer during ANZAC Day commemorations whilst al-Kutobi and Kiad planned to fire-bomb a Shi’a prayer hall.

Terrorist Acts Claimed by Islamic State

During the uprising against the Assad regime, the plethora of anti-government groups made it difficult to determine enduring group loyalties. Islamic State grew out of the old alQaeda in Iraq (AQI)/Islamic State in Iraq (ISI) that established a secret branch in Syria, operating as Jabhat al-Nusra (JAN). A move by the Islamic State leader Abu Bakr alBaghdadi to rename his group Islamic State in Iraq and ash-Sham (ISIS) and reveal the link to JAN led to an irrevocable split between al-Baghdadi and the al-Qaeda leadership which subsequently saw JAN and ISIS take up arms against the other.144 But less than a fortnight after the Lindt Café siege, despite Monis declaring through one of his hostages that Australia was ‘under attack by Islamic State’, al-Qaeda was the first terrorist organisation to acknowledge Monis’ attack. On 28 December 2014, the al-Qaeda magazine Inspire145 referred to Monis:

After years of peaceful protest in Australia, a… Muslim takes dozens of hostages in a cafe for 16 hours.146

On 30 December 2014, the sixth edition of Dabiq, the Islamic State online propaganda magazine, also lauded Monis’ actions in joining the ‘mujahidin’ in their ‘war against the crusader coalition’.147 Although Islamic State did not assert any connection with him, Monis was acclaimed for having ‘brought terror to the entire nation’ and erased his history of ‘shirk and transgression’. The magazine featured a full-page colour photograph of Monis and quotations attributed to him.

After inaccurately describing Islamic State as having ‘claimed’ Monis’ siege, the Coroner qualified that observation by adding ‘this claim is of questionable significance because it occurred after the siege’.148 The Coroner referred favourably to the evidence of Bruce Hoffman who opined that ‘Islamic State does not arbitrarily claim the acts of anyone asserting jihadi objectives, but reserves its avowed affiliations for those who have some degree of connection to [Islamic State]’.149 This assertion by Hoffman is quite erroneous. It is well recognised that Islamic State needs no connection with perpetrators of violence to claim an attack in its name.150 Surpassing al-Qaeda,151 Islamic State has become adept in its use of the Internet, social media platforms and viral marketing152 for both recruitment and propaganda, including its strategy of portraying itself as an organisation with a global reach.153

By opportunistically claiming responsibility post hoc for lone-actor attacks outside of the Middle East war zones, Islamic State hopes to maintain its relevance as it continues to be degraded.154 Typically, Islamic State first claims the ‘attack’ on the Amaq news agency via social media and then posts video,155 audio, text messages, tweets156 or screenshots from the perpetrators pledging an oath of ‘allegiance’ or loyalty (bay’ah) to al-Baghdadi, the ‘caliph’. Subsequently, the perpetrators are extolled in the Islamic State online magazines – originally in Dabiq157 which was first published in four languages through the Al-Hayat Media Centre in July 2014, or after September 2016, the more polished Rumiyah158 – using stock format phrases like ‘soldiers of Islam’ responding to the call to target the ‘crusaders’ or ‘citizens of the coalition countries’.159 In November 2014, Islamic State released a short film featuring Mohammed ‘Jihadi John’ Emwazi and the infamous mass decapitation of 22 captured Syrian Army soldiers. The highly professional production was likely to have taken up to six hours of filming and editing and was estimated to have cost US$200,000 to produce.160

In July 2016, Islamic State distributed a video which appeared to show the Eiffel Tower on fire and claimed responsibility for the attack.161 However, French police promptly released a statement confirming that the dramatic image actually depicted a Bastille Day firework display.

In June 2017, Jessie Carlos was a 42-year-old married father of three and former government Filipino finance employee who had lost his job owing more than US$80,000. After his family had arranged for him to be banned from casinos because of his gambling addiction, he entered a casino hotel near the airport in Manilla and fired shots and set fire to gambling tables before stuffing casino chips worth more than US$2 million into his backpack. Most of his 23 victims died of suffocation from smoke. Amaq announced that ‘Islamic State fighters carried out’ the attack and a later statement boasted about the number of ‘Christians killed or wounded’ before the gunman ‘took his life’.162

Within a week of the then deadliest mass shooting in United States history in October 2017, in which nearly 60 people were killed in Las Vegas, Amaq claimed that 64-year-old real estate millionaire and high-stakes gambler Stephen Paddock was ‘a soldier of the Islamic State’ and had carried out the ‘operation in response to targeting coalition countries’.163 Jihadoscope, which monitors jihadi cyber activity, confirmed that Amaq also claimed that the ‘Attacker of Las Vegas converted [to Islam] several months before’. The FBI and Paddock’s family have debunked any suggestion that he had converted or had any connection with any Islamist extremist group.164

The ‘Lone Actor’ Terrorist

In nature, wolves are social animals that usually hunt in mated pairs or packs. In wolf packs, the dominant alpha male and female may victimise the submissive omega wolf, the lowest in the pack hierarchy, who may end up leaving the pack to hunt alone.165 Jenkins has argued that the term ‘lone wolf terrorist’ is a ‘romanticising term’ that suggests a ‘cunning and deadly perpetrator when this is not often the case’.166

There is a burgeoning literature on lone-actor terrorists.167 The anomic lone actor negotiates a different radicalisation. As Spaaji has suggested, unlike in the small conspiratorial terrorist group or cell, the lone actor often becomes radicalised within their own attainable means, including violent online sermons and an idiosyncratic reverence for some identified terrorist movement or leader, and adopts tactics and methods without any direct outside command or direction.168

The lone-actor terrorists may have a range of personal grievances and may adopt or seek validation or legitimisation by identifying with a recognised terrorist organisation or terrorist agenda even though the individual may have no direct or indirect communication or even any real affinity with any terrorist organisation or agenda.169

Pantucci has emphasised that whilst they may appear to act alone and without any external instigation or support, most socalled ‘lone actors’ demonstrate some degree of contact with operational extremists.170 ‘[T] hey may appear to be troubled individuals who seek solace in the extremist ideology – an ideology that while for the most part remains self-taught, also appears to be reinforced through online contact with extremists’.171 A study of 112 cases of individuals indicted for Islamic State-related terrorist offences in the United States between March 2014 and August 2016 found that more than 80% watched Islamic State propaganda videos including lectures by terrorist leaders or execution videos.172

Highlighting the ease with which an individual may access extremist dogma on the Internet or social media and even technical information or online manuals for bomb- making, Sageman has observed: ‘The internet has dramatically transformed the structure and dynamic of the evolving threat of … terrorism’.173 Brachman has coined the term ‘jihobbyists’ to disparage those individuals who relate anonymously with others online in support of real-world extremists.174

The ‘Lone Actor’ Terrorist – ‘Leakage’ and Broadcasting Intent

An early study of foiled terrorist attacks in America suggested that more than 80% were initially discovered by law enforcement agencies or the general public.175 A subsequent study found that, on average, terrorist incidents are preceded by at least two activities that authorities register.176 Hamm found that even skilled terrorists leave clues as to their violent intentions, either through poor ‘tradecraft’177 or to deliberately attract notoriety.178

Operational security refers to the behaviours by which a lone-actor terrorist minimises the likelihood of detection whilst planning or preparing an attack. ‘Leakage’ refers to behaviours by which a ‘would-be’ lone actor intentionally or unintentionally divulges their motivation, capability or resolve to commit a terrorist attack.179 The most surprising finding of a recent study of the attack-planning and preparation of 55 lone-actor terrorists was the infrequency with which lone actors took operational security.180 The study found:

• 86% communicated their radical or extremist convictions to others including family members, friends, colleagues or strangers online
• 58% indicated to others that they were involved in suspicious and potentially violent activities
• one-third communicated a desire to commit an as-yet unspecified attack
• 49% came in contact with the authorities during the planning and preparation phase182

A study of 69 ‘post-9/11’ cases which satisfied the strict criteria for ‘lone-wolf terrorists’ found that in 70% of instances, the terrorists broadcast their intent before initiating the attack.181 Hamm and Spaaij concluded that ‘on balance, broadcasting intent is a trademark of lone wolf terrorists and, as an observable phenomenon, it can help (at least) give insight into lone wolf terrorism’.182

Man Haron Monis – Not a Devout Muslim, no Connection with the Islamic Community

In 1997, when he first arrived in Australia, despite professing to be a Shi’a cleric, Monis also claimed that he was victimised in Iran for his association with the minority Ahmadi sect, a persecuted stream of Sunni Islam. Less than a year after he was granted a Protection visa, Monis began operating as a self-styled ‘spiritual consultant’ practising clairvoyance, astrology, numerology and ‘black magic’ which are activities entirely antithetical to his professed Muslim faith.

There is no evidence that Monis demonstrated any genuine religious zeal or commitment. During the inquest, no witness testified to observing Monis in solemn prayer or devotion. There was a short video that purported to show Monis and others receiving their white turbans during a religious ceremony in a hawza (a centre for scholarly learning in Iran). There are several levels of qualification that can be attained by those studying Shi’a. Whilst Monis may have achieved the level of hojjat al-Islam, there is no indication that he was ever actually granted an ijaza (certificate of scholarly achievement) issued by any teacher at any hawza.

Monis had no substantive links to the Islamic community. Indeed, during an interview on ABC, the founder of the Islamic Friendship Association of Australia said that Monis was considered ‘damaged goods’ and had been rejected by the Sydney Muslim community.186 During an interview with the BBC, the Director of the Forum on Australian Islamic Relations described Monis as ‘isolated’ from the Muslim community in Australia. On 28 December 2007, the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils (AFIC) urged ‘Sheikh Haron’ to identify himself and stop exploiting freedom of speech to attack mainstream Australia under the banner of Islam.187 AFIC president Ikebal Patel said Muslim leaders feared that ‘Sheikh Haron’, whose website provided no insight into his identity or religious qualifications, would encourage others to adopt the persona of an Islamic spiritual leader to ferment controversy. Mr Patel said senior Muslim spiritual leaders from around Australia, including executives of the Australian National Imams Council, had been unable to confirm the identity of ‘Sheikh Haron’.

On 28 January 2008, after Monis attracted attention by sending offensive letters to the families of fallen Australian soldiers, the president of the Supreme Islamic Shi’a Council of Australia, Sheikh Kamal Mousselmani, told The Australian that Monis, who at that time referred to himself as ‘Ayatollah Manteghi Boroujerdi’, was not a genuine Shi’a spiritual leader (‘You take one look and think, he is an idiot’).188 Sheikh Mousselmani was reported to have canvassed the Shi’a community in Australia and also inquired of religious schools in Iran (‘I’ve talked to our community and asked if they knew him, but they did not and even over there in Iran, they had not heard of him’). After highlighting that the content of Monis’ website showed what he described as, at best, ‘an amateur knowledge’ of Islam, Sheikh Mousselmani characterised Monis’ behaviour as ‘erratic … not like a real sheikh’ and urged the AFP to investigate Monis’ identity.189

His appearance in Shi’a clerical garb at rallies and protests and his inane and prolix pronouncements could not mitigate the reality that Monis had no following and was held in contempt by his own Shi’a community and the broader Muslim community. Immediately after the siege, Dr Jamal Rifi, a senior Muslim community leader in Sydney, said Monis was not a sheikh: ‘He had no religious qualifications whatsoever. He has never been associated with any mainstream mosque, and he is not associated with any of our religious leaders whatsoever’.190 Monis’ apparent association with Hizb-ut-Tahrir was also likely to be nothing more than cynical opportunism. It has never been shown that Monis had any standing within Hizb-ut-Tahrir.

Whilst Monis had a long history of attention-seeking behaviours related to a number of causes, he demonstrated no deep attachment or commitment to any of these, and it is erroneous to conclude that any apparent connection with any group indicated any strongly held belief in that group’s ideals or objectives.191

After Channel 7 highlighted his pretentions as risible and his criticism of Australia’s foreign policy and military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan as specious, Monis’ vitriol escalated as he vainly sought attention and credibility.

Man Haron Monis – The Website

An examination of Monis’ prominent website is also particularly revealing. The statements and proclamations on his website never demonstrated a sophisticated understanding of Islamic theology. The often rambling and obtuse references mixed up Sunni, Shi’a, Sufist and other Muslim terminology. Perversely, at one stage, an image of Osama bin Laden appeared on Monis’ website. Bin Laden, an adherent of Wahhabism, the strict doctrinaire form of Sunni Islam, had actually proclaimed that Shi’a Muslims (of which, at the time, Monis professed to be a cleric) were ‘heretics’ and, along with ‘America and Israel’, were the principal ‘enemies of Islam’.

Man Haron Monis – The Request to Write to Caliph Ibrahim of Islamic State

On 7 October 2014, the Federal AttorneyGeneral received correspondence from Monis in which he asked whether he could write to ‘Caliph Ibrahim’ of Islamic State. Referring to Monis’ letter, the Coroner found: ‘Monis exhibited a familiar behavioural pattern of writing controversial letters to holders of high office. Again this letter in itself is not necessarily suggestive of terrorist intentions, but it does suggest a shift in Monis’ thinking and perhaps an increasing identification with radical interpretations of Islam’.192 This finding of the Coroner shows a very unsophisticated interpretation of a quite fatuous gesture by Monis on the day before he was charged with a further 37 sex offences. This gesture by Monis showed no shift in his thinking, only a shift in his attention to the most recent high-profile event on which he hoped to attract further attention to himself.

Rather than clearly declaring his allegiance to the ‘caliph’ (the leader of the Muslim community) or his support of Islamic State, Monis was ostensibly asking whether it was ‘legal’ for him to make some ‘comments’ and ask ‘some questions’ of the leader of Islamic State. Monis, who at that time professed to be a Shi’a cleric, was purporting to write ‘a letter’ to the leader of the militant Sunni forces which had been systematically destroying mosques and other sacred Shi’a sites and slaughtering minority Shi’a populations across northern Iraq.

Man Haron Monis – Conversion from Shi’a to Sunni Islam?

Less than two weeks before the Sydney siege, Monis self-identified as a Shi’a Muslim, the arch enemy of the Sunni extremist organisation Islamic State. The obscure reference Monis made in December 2014 to not being ‘Rafidi anymore’ can be characterised as the self-serving ploy of a fantasist who parlayed the jargon of Islamic extremist rhetoric in his disparate denouement. Pointedly, the Coroner did not make a finding that Monis had actually converted. In his findings, the Coroner referred to the evidence of an ‘academic in Islamic studies’ who was dubious about Monis’ purported conversion from Shi’a to Sunni, given that Sunni Islamic State was well documented as having committed repeated atrocities against Shi’a Muslims in Iraq and Syria.193 In this regard, the inquest was very poorly served by this opinion evidence.

It is impossible to overstate the importance of sectarianism in the strategic doctrine of Islamic State. Al-Zarqawi referred to Shi’a Muslims as ‘a sect of treachery and betrayal’.194 From the outset, al-Zarqawi believed that Islamic State attacks on the Shi’a populations in Iraq would not only undermine the new Iraqi Government and local support for the coalition forces, but the provocation would also highlight to Sunnis the perfidy and vindictiveness of the Shi’a.195 Even after al-Zarqawi’s death in June 2006, Islamic State’s sectarian violence continued without restraint, targeting both Shi’a religious and political leaders as well as Shi’a civilian populations.196 In May 2012, Islamic State spokesperson Abu Muhammad al-Adnani issued a statement: ‘[y]our first enemy is the [Shi’ites], and after them the Jews and the Crusaders’.197 A year later, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi announced: ‘So rise, O lions of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, and cure the frustration of the believers and attack the hateful Rafidah [Shi’ites], the criminal Nusayris, the Party of Satan [Shi’a Hezbollah] and those who come from Qum, Najaf and Tehran’.198

On 12 June 2014, it was reported that Islamic State captured and executed 1566 Shi’a Iraqi Air Force cadets in a base in Tikrit in north west Iraq.199 In the five months between June 2014 when it announced the ‘caliphate’ and December 2014, Islamic State also committed mass atrocities on Shi’a minority civilian populations in Syria. The United Kingdom-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that in five months, 1429 people were pitilessly beheaded or shot dead in mass killings including women and children in the provinces of Aleppo, Deir Ezzor, Hama, Homs, Hasakah and Raqqa.200

Man Haron Monis – No Pledge of Loyalty to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

An oath of bay’ah (loyalty) is a regular feature of Islamic State terrorists.201 The bay’ah is a pledge of loyalty to an individual, not to an organisation and may be recorded in a number of ways.202 In June 2012, 29-year-old Omar Mateen, who was born in New York to Afghan parents, was employed as a security guard when he phoned 911 dispatchers and pledged fealty to ‘Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi … on behalf of the Islamic State’ before attacking a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida and shooting dead 49 people.203 Fellow jihadists used the Telegram app to promptly disseminate pictures of Mateen praising him as a martyr and ‘soldier of the Caliphate’. A trend soon developed on Telegram in which attacks were referred to under the hashtag ‘dar al-kuffar’ (home of disbelievers) as opposed to ‘dar al-Islam’ (home of followers of Islam).204 Less that a fortnight after Tunisian-born Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel drove a truck through crowds celebrating Bastille Day in Nice, the killers of an 85-year-old French priest in Normandy recorded a video in which they pledged their loyalty to ‘Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi al-Husseini al-Qurayshi’ before the background of a handmade paper Islamic State flag.205 In the week of the December 2015 mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, who were both of Pakistani descent, left a Facebook post in which they pledged allegiance to ‘Khalifah Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi al-Quraishi’.206 In June 2016 during Ramadan, 25-year-old Frenchman Larossi Abballa stabbed to death a French police officer and his partner in their home in Magnanville, east of Paris. Three weeks earlier, Abballa had pledged allegiance to ‘Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’ on Facebook, saying he would answer the call to ‘kill the infidels, at their homes with their families’. Before police stormed the house and killed him, Abballa made a video, which was the first live feed of an Islamist terrorist attack posted on Facebook.207 Amaq news agency also later released the video. In December 2016, four days after Tunisian-born Anis Amri drove a truck into the Breitscheidplatz Christmas market in Berlin, killing 12 people and injuring 56 others, Amaq released a video in which Amri had pledged allegiance to ‘Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’.208

The wording of the brief pledge which Monis posted on his website on 17 November 2014 reveals more about his sense of self-importance and narcissism than any loyalty to the ‘caliph’. The Coroner incorrectly found that Monis pledged ‘allegiance to the [Islamic State] “Caliph” four weeks before the siege.209 In fact, Monis pledged allegiance only to ‘God, his messenger’ (presumably the prophet Muhammad) and ‘the Caliphate of the Muslims’, which suggests that Monis saw himself so self-importantly that he was not beholden to any mortal leader. Monis never referred to al-Baghdadi by name when he offered the generic salutation: ‘Peace be upon the Commander of the faithful and the Caliph of the Muslims, the imam/preacher of our time’. The wording of Monis’ pledge fell well short of implying any sense of a subordinate relationship.

Man Haron Monis – No Leakage, no Broadcast of Intent, no Terrorist Message

Nothing has ever been demonstrated to substantiate that Monis was even inspired by Islamic State. Contemporary Islamist terrorists in Australia who have self-affiliated with Islamic State have typically shown a propensity to download online video or audio material or social media content, including anasheed (Arabic poetry sung without music).

For their networking and clandestine communications, jihadists commonly use encrypted apps, like Telegram, WhatsApp or Zellow.210 However, Monis posted all his messages and correspondence on his publicly accessible website, presumably so that he could attract the widest lay audience. Narcissistically, Monis created videos that cobbled together excerpts of news reports of his activities and protests and his turgid monologues and correspondence to public figures.

There was no record of Monis ever having downloaded or viewed on his computer or mobile phone any videos or speeches from radical Salafist clerics (as did convicted Australian terrorists Tamim Khaja, Ali al-Talebi, Omar Succarieh, Omar al-Kutobi and Mohammad Kiad) or any of the vast material produced by Islamic State or other extremists organisations.

Both the Joint Commonwealth–New South Wales Review and the New South Wales Coroner found that right up to the siege, as ASIO and law enforcement agencies continued to monitor his website and Facebook page, Monis gave no indication that he had formed an intent to commit a terrorist act. Although he had become a proficient and prolific user of the Internet and social media, Monis did not broadcast his intent before the siege, and he left no clear ‘terrorist message’. In his evidence to the inquest, a fraud- and cyber detective testified that he had examined Monis’ YouTube accounts and the websites Monis visited and his use of social media platforms and found no evidence of any online or social media ‘footprint’ or that Monis had any contact with Islamic State or any extremist or terrorist organisation.

Monis had a twitter account with the handle ‘@sheikh_haron’ which was linked to an email account with the username ‘peaceactivist’. The cyber detective was able to use Twitter analytics to determine that, before the siege, Monis had only 12 followers. His first tweet in November 2014 was ‘please connect to me’, and his last tweet on 14 December 2014, the day before the siege, was a link to his website.

Man Haron Monis – No Martyrdom Video, no Propaganda Message

The ‘martyrdom video’ has become virtually synonymous with the preparation of Islamic State extremists before launching an attack.211 Although Monis was prolific in his Internet postings and had also become quite adept at creating videos to upload on YouTube or on his website, he created no martyrdom video and left no propaganda message. An increasingly common feature of Islamic State-inspired terrorist attacks is the use of hand-held cameras (GoPro or phone camera) to capture images or film to upload to Facebook in real-time.212 Even during the siege, Monis did not record any video or deliver any message on either his or any of the hostages’ mobile phones which could have been used as propaganda by Islamic State.

Man Haron Monis – Not Mentally Disordered

There is actually very limited research into the possible associations between terrorism and mental illness. Whilst substance use disorders, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and personality disorders, particularly narcissistic and anti-social personality disorder,213 are likely to be over-represented in studies of terrorist offenders, most case series and studies have significant limitations.214 Small sample sizes, unreliable collateral history from informants, poorly worded or broad definitions and selection and hindsight biases are likely to contribute to over-diagnosing of mental illness in ‘psychological autopsies’ of terrorists who are killed or take their own lives.215 Interviews and assessments of captured or would-be terrorists may also be prejudiced by confirmation bias, or the assessments may elaborate features that reflect malingering or the deterioration of the mental state of a person who has failed in his or her mission and is detained in custody contemplating a long prison sentence.216

Characteristics vary across different forms of terrorists – suicide bombers,217 lone-actor shooters or members of a small terrorist cell – and the prevalence of serious mental illnesses in terrorists is not clear.218 Mentally disordered persons may have overvalued ideas and paranoid delusional beliefs of religious or political content, and they may arm themselves and make threats as terrorists do.219 Mentally disordered persons are also vulnerable to being targeted and manipulated by terrorist organisations who may encourage them to commit a dramatic violent act that may otherwise be characterised as ‘rational’, purposeful and organised.220 An example is Khaled Sharrouf, the 33-year-old Australian-born son of Lebanese migrants, who later shocked the world by releasing a photo of his seven-year-old son holding the severed head of a Syrian soldier and was imprisoned for his role in the Pendennis terror plot. In 2005, a psychiatrist who visited Goulburn prison reported that Sharrouf had schizophrenia and experienced hallucinations and was secluded in the ‘high-risk management unit’ before he had treatment for his mental illness in the prison.221

Since he arrived in Australia, Monis attended a number of doctors, psychologists and psychiatrists and was assessed on two occasions in custody by Justice Health and Forensic Mental Health Services. The Coroner noted that Monis consulted different healthcare providers without disclosing his history of earlier presentations, and he gave differing accounts of complaints and symptoms.222

Monis is likely to have been guarded, hypervigilant and paranoid, given all the women he had victimised and the many people he had offended, including customs officials and particularly the families of the Australians to whom he had sent vile letters. Monis’ actions also attracted the attention of police and security agencies, and he may have had reality-based concerns that he was intermittently under surveillance by different agencies. However, there is no evidence that Monis ever developed a major mental illness even when he experienced the stressors of being arrested, detained in watch houses and remanded to prison awaiting court hearings.

Man Haron Monis – Malignant Narcissist

After reviewing the evidence from all the health care providers who had actually had contact with Monis, the Coroner had the benefit of the opinion of the NSW Police Forensic Services clinical psychologist, who concluded that Monis demonstrated features of narcissistic personality disorder. The inquest also had an expert report from senior forensic psychiatrist Dr Jonathan Phillips, who examined all of Monis’ antecedents and history of contact with mental health services and found no convincing evidence that Monis suffered from any diagnosable categorical psychiatric disorder at the time of the siege.223 Dr Phillips opined that Monis had for many years led ‘a secretive, self-serving life [in which he was] driven at all times by his own idiosyncratic desires [and that he lacked] any sense of understanding of the sensitivities of others’224 and concluded that Monis had a severe personality disorder with anti-social, narcissistic and paranoid features.225

The Coroner concluded that Monis began the siege ‘in a controlled, planned and quite methodical manner marked by deliberations and choice’. The Coroner emphasised that Monis did not have a mental illness and that he ‘fully understood that the deaths of hostages were a real possibility and that the prospect of such an outcome was of no concern to him’.226

During her murder trial between 22 August and 5 October 2016, Droudis’ defence counsel did not contest the Crown case that Monis organised the murder of his ex-wife, the mother of his two adolescent children. The trial judge found overwhelming evidence that Monis had planned the murder. At the time of the siege, Monis was also charged with a total of 43 sexual offences against six victims. The Coroner later noted that, since a number of women, who did not know one another and were from different ethnic backgrounds, all described assaults that were remarkably similar, it was likely that Monis would have been convicted of multiple offences had he stood trial.227 Since the High Court had just dismissed his appeal from the postal charges, it is likely that Monis became concerned that at any time he may be charged with further offences and that his bail would be revoked and he would be remanded into custody to await trial.

The Coroner highlighted that, in contrast to his previous publicity-seeking behaviour, during the siege Monis sought to maintain anonymity and responded negatively by telling hostages to hang up when police negotiators began using his name.228 The Coroner also pointed to Monis not mentioning or making any demands in relation to his ‘personal grievances’ during the siege.229 But it can be argued that being identified as a ‘fake sheikh’ who was charged with multiple sex offences and was also implicated in the murder of his ex-wife would not have served Monis’ grandiose pretensions. To be dismissed simply as a serial pest or predatory sex offender would have detracted from Monis’ self-aggrandisement and diminished the notoriety he sought.

Why did Monis Take a List of Muslim Prisoners to the Siege?

After the siege, a note was found in Monis’ pocket. The note had a list of contact details and inmate ‘master index numbers’ of some Muslim prisoners in Long Bay Correctional Centre whom Monis met between May–April 2014 whilst he was held on remand.230 As the Coroner noted, the finding of the list suggests that Monis anticipated surviving the siege and becoming a notorious prisoner.231 The finding of the list of prisoners’ names further points to the conclusion that the overriding consideration for Monis was to conduct a dramatic siege which would enhance his standing even after he was imprisoned. Rather than being disparaged as a psychopathic sex offender, the siege would enable Monis to cast himself as a ‘lone wolf’ jihadist who would be admired and respected, at least by his fellow Muslim inmates.

The Lindt Cafe' Siege – Not Characteristic of an Islamic State Attack

Between 2014 –2016, there were more casualties (273) from extremist violence in Europe than in all previous years combined, as jihadists launched mass-casualty attacks in which large numbers of civilians were targeted: 13 November 2015, Paris attack (130 killed); 22 March 2016, Brussels airport and metro station bombings (32 killed); 28 June 2016, Istanbul airport attack (45 killed); 16 July 2016, Nice truck attack (84 killed); 24 December 2016, Berlin truck attack (12 killed).232 It has been estimated that since its inception, Islamic State has been connected with more than 5000 terrorist attacks worldwide.233

The quite explicit aim of any Islamic State terrorist act is to cause fear and terror by killing as many ‘unbelievers’ as possible. But the Lindt Café siege clearly did not fol-low this very basic direction. Whilst Monis had armed himself with over 20 shotgun cartridges, before police stormed the Lindt Café, Monis fired his shotgun only three times and deliberately killed only one hostage. Clearly, as the siege was drawn out over nearly 17 hours, Monis’ original aim was not to terrorise the community by killing hostages.

Very rarely have Islamic State-inspired attacks resulted in hostage or siege situations. An exception was in January 2015, when, having already killed a police officer on the previous day, Amedy Coulibaly entered a kosher supermarket in the Porte de Vincennes area of Paris and shot dead four Jewish hostages. The ensuing siege lasted four and a half hours before Coulibaly deliberately ran toward massed police and was shot dead. In a video released after his death, Coulibaly pledged allegiance to al-Baghdadi and announced that his actions were co-ordinated with the Charlie Hebdo attacks which had occurred two days earlier in Paris.234 He made a martyrdom video and a further video using GoPro whilst he was holding hostages and attempted to upload the images to broadcast on the Internet. On 13 June 2016, Larossi Abballa, a Frenchman with previous terrorism convictions, killed a police officer and then held his wife and child in their house for several hours, during which time he killed the wife with a knife, which he filmed and uploaded onto Facebook. He told negotiators that he had pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and was following Islamic State’s instructions to kill non-believers in their homes with their families.235

Sieges by followers of Islamic State have occurred, but these have all been part of a complex attack. On 7 January 2015, 12 people were killed in the attack on the Paris offices of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. During the Bataclan nightclub attack in Paris on 13 November 2015, nearly 100 civilians fell victim to the well co-ordinated and brutally executed shootings and bombings near the Saint-Martin canal in Paris. In both these instances, the sieges followed mass killings. At no time during the brief sieges did the attackers make any demands, and there was never any negotiation over the fate of any hostages. The sieges ended only when the remaining terrorists were unable to escape and blew themselves up or were killed by police.236

The Lindt Cafe' Siege – Not a Well-Planned Attack, no Islamic State Flag, no Jihadist Vernacular

The Coroner cited with approval the opinion of Hoffman that Monis’ planning for the siege included bringing an Islamic banner and headband to the siege, and that his offer to exchange hostages for his demands was indicative of an act of terrorism.237 But Monis’ preparation was actually very rudimentary.

Although the Coroner did not hear any expert evidence on Monis’ crudely scribbled hostage demand note, and its content has never been subject to any critical neuro-linguistic analysis, the note appears to have been written hurriedly. In the backpack he only bought on the previous day, Monis carried a speaker box with wires roughly soldered to the terminals. As Monis envisaged, the media coverage highlighted the hostages being forced to hold up a black flag with Ara-bic writing in the window of the Lindt Café.

But the shahada is a central tenet of Islam which, in itself, is not synonymous with extremism or jihadists. Monis did not have the Black Standard of the Islamic State,238 and the headband he wore during the siege was one that he had previously been photographed wearing at a rally (‘We are your soldiers Muhammad. … May Allah honour him and grant him peace’) and is not emblematic of the adherents of any particular Islamic extremists group.

By contrast, before their planned attack in Sydney, Kutobi and Kiad made a stencil and created an Islamic State flag which was the backdrop to their martyrdom video in which they vowed to strike ‘unbelievers’. In Besim’s case, police found that the home screen of his mobile phone featured the Islamic State flag.

From the outset of the siege, Monis’ aim appeared to be to draw attention to himself rather than any cause. The handwritten note he ordered café manager Tori Johnson to read is particularly instructive in this regard. In the note, Monis referred to ‘Islamic State’ only in the first sentence and only to announce that it was an ‘attack’ on Australia. Monis made no explicit reference to any terrorist objective. During the siege, Monis never used any of the vernacular characteristic of Islamist jihadists (kuffar – infidels, murtaddin – apostates, tawaghıt – tyrannical rulers, sahwat – Syrians or Iraqis who collaborated with the United States-led coalition or ‘crusaders’ – the West or Christians) and neither did he cite any verses from the Koran and Hadith or refer to any of the prophetic Islamist episodes from the medieval era to justify the case for muwahhidın or martyrdom (istishhadi). Instead, Monis demanded to ‘debate’ the Prime Minister live on ABC Radio.

Why Target the Lindt Cafe'?

Martin Place, in the heart of Sydney’s central business district, is one of the most intensively monitored precincts in Australia and is occupied by the Reserve Bank of Australia, the United States Consulate, the studios of the Channel 7 television network and an entrance to a busy railway station. The Sydney Cenotaph, the city’s most prominent monument to Australia’s fallen service men and women, is also located nearby. Since he was vilified as the ‘fake sheikh’ in the 2009 television program, Monis’ many protests resulted in a high level of security at the Channel 7 studio. From 8:26 am on the morning of the siege, during the usual live morning broadcast of the ‘Sunrise’ program, exterior surveillance cameras captured Monis walking past the building.

Monis’ choice of target and his conduct were also not indicative of an Islamic State-inspired or directed attack. Unlike the offices of Charlie Hebdo, a kosher supermarket in Paris or the Canadian Houses of Parliament, the Lindt Café had no particular social, politi-cal or religious significance. Its significance however, lay in the fact that it was located directly opposite the studio of Channel 7, an organisation that Monis believed had maligned and disrespected him in the past. Monis’ choice of target appears to have been motivated by a deep personal grievance, rather than to advance any terrorist agenda.