Tag: Haron Monis

Counterterrorism, Sydney

Australia Tries to Figure Out How Gunman Eluded Counterterrorism Effort

SYDNEY, Australia — The Australian authorities came under increasing pressure on Wednesday to explain why the gunman in the armed siege at a Sydney cafe that left two hostages dead was not being monitored despite his criminal record and public airings of his radical views.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott said Wednesday that the gunman, Man Haron Monis, “had been of interest to our security agencies” but was not on a government watch list.

“And we want to know why,” Mr. Abbott said in a radio interview Wednesday morning. “We want to know why he wasn’t being monitored.”

“The system did not adequately deal with the individual, there is no doubt about that,” Mr. Abbott said.

Mr. Monis, who was fatally shot by the police on Tuesday after the 16-hour siege of a restaurant in downtown Sydney, was facing trial on a number of charges, including being an accessory to the murder of his former wife.

He was convicted of harassing the families of Australian soldiers killed in Afghanistan and lost his final appeal in that case on Friday, three days before he went to the restaurant and took the people there hostage. In April, he was charged in the sexual assault of a woman in western Sydney in 2002. Forty more counts of sexual assault involving six other women were later added to that case.

Australian security officials had not closely monitored the man who took hostages and killed two people in a cafe in Australia, despite his criminal history and his public airings of radical views. “And we want to know why,” the prime minister said. Peter Parks/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The police on Wednesday raided the southwest Sydney home Mr. Monis shared with his girlfriend, Amirzh Droudis, raising questions over whether she might have played some role in Mr. Monis’s plans.

Ms. Droudis has been charged with stabbing and burning to death Mr. Monis’s former wife last year.

The seriousness of the charges facing Mr. Monis and Ms. Droudis — Mr. Monis’s former wife, Noleen Hayson Pal, was stabbed 18 times and set on fire — has led to questions as to why the two were let out on bail.

Daryl Pearce, the magistrate who granted them bail last December, was reported in the Australian news media at the time to have said that bail was a “simple matter of fairness” and that the prosecution’s case was weak. Mr. Monis argued at the hearing that the Iranian secret service was trying to frame him.

The premier of New South Wales, Mike Baird, said Tuesday that he had requested police and justice officials to speed the carrying out of laws that would make the criteria for bail more restrictive. The changes to the bail laws were decided well before the siege, but the laws were not to be enforced until next year.

The violence at the Lindt Chocolate Cafe also left at least three people wounded. A total 17 people were taken hostage when Mr. Monis, armed with a gun, entered the cafe on Monday morning.

The Australian government introduced a raft of laws this year in response to what Mr. Abbott called a growing threat that the Islamic State, the militant group in Iraq and Syria, would attempt a bold act of terrorism on Australian soil.

The laws, which passed Parliament with wide support, made it an offense to advocate terrorism, barred Australians from going to fight overseas, allowed the authorities to confiscate and cancel passports, and provided for the sharing of information between security services and defense personnel.

The government also deployed hundreds of police officers in counterterrorism sweeps across the country.

That none of these measures prevented this week’s attack has stoked a debate on the effectiveness of counterterrorism measures and their limitations against men like Mr. Monis. He may have been overlooked because he did not travel overseas and was not believed to be part of a gang or a terrorist network.

“The new laws don’t add anything to what can be done in advance in a situation like the siege,” said Bret Walker, a lawyer who was Australia’s first independent monitor for national security laws.

“The real problem is not a legal issue or something the new laws can fix, but marginalized and radicalized people who may in fact not be breaking counterterrorism laws,” said Peter Jennings, the executive director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

Raffaello Pantucci, the director of international security studies at the Royal United Services Institute in London, said terrorist groups had been pushing the notion of a “lone actor.”

“The attack package is a very low-grade effort,” Mr. Pantucci said. “You don’t tell anyone about it, and that makes it very difficult for intelligence agencies to pick these people up.”

The Islamic State issued a call in September for a supporter to snatch an Australian at random and behead him.

The police said Tuesday that they would step up patrols of “iconic locations” in Sydney and transportation hubs for the next three weeks.

Correction: December 16, 2014
An earlier version of this article referred imprecisely to the flag that was displayed in the cafe’s window. It was a Shahada flag that Mr. Monis had brought with him, not an  Islamic State banner. Although he had demanded a banner from the authorities, it is unclear if it was ever delivered.
Brandis

Sydney siege: Tony Abbott says Sydney gunman Man Haron Monis was not on security watchlists

Mike Baird and Tony Abbott address the media, Dec 16 2014

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has revealed the gunman responsible for the Sydney siege was not on a security watchlist, despite his long criminal history and known “infatuation with extremism”.

Self-styled Iranian cleric Man Haron Monis was killed about 16 hours after taking 17 people hostage at the Lindt Chocolate Cafe on Monday morning.

Two hostages, Lindt cafe manager Tori Johnson, 34, and barrister Katrina Dawson, 38, were also killed.

Mr Abbott flew to Sydney this afternoon after convening a meeting of the powerful National Security Committee of Cabinet this morning.

Standing alongside New South Wales Premier Mike Baird and Australian Federal Police Commissioner Andrew Colvin, Mr Abbott described Monis as a “deeply disturbed individual” who was “consistently weird”.

“How can someone who has had such a long and chequered history, not be on the appropriate watchlists?” he said.

“And how can someone like that be entirely at large in the community?

“These are questions that we need to look at carefully and calmly and methodically, to learn the right lessons, and to act upon them.”

How can someone who has had such a long and chequered history, not be on the appropriate watch lists?

Tony Abbott

Mr Abbott said the man was well known to the NSW Police, the AFP and the domestic spy agency ASIO and said it was reasonable to ask whether the incident could have been prevented.

“Even if this individual, this sick and disturbed individual, had been front and centre on our watchlists, even if this individual had been monitored 24 hours a day, it’s quite likely, certainly possible, that this incident could have taken place, because the level of control that would be necessary to prevent people from going about their daily life, would be very, very high indeed.”

Mr Baird echoed Mr Abbott’s comments.

“We are all outraged that this guy was on the street. We are. And we need to understand why he was,” he said.

“We also need to understand why he wasn’t picked up and we’ll be working closely with the Federal authorities together with our own agencies to ensure what we can do better.

“[The] community has every right to feel upset. I’m incredibly upset. I’m outraged and we need to ensure that everything is done to learn from this.”

PM says ‘most difficult 36 hours’ in Sydney’s history

Mr Abbott has described the siege as an “absolutely appalling and ugly” incident and said it has been one of the most difficult periods in Australia’s history.

“This is an incident which has echoed around the world,” he said.

“Tens if not hundreds of millions of people right around the world have been focused on the city of Sydney which has been touched by terrorism for the first time in more than 35 years.”

Mr Abbott thanked and congratulated the New South Wales Police for the commitment and professionalism they showed.

Reporter recalls meeting gunman


ABC court reporter Jamelle Wells reflects on her first encounter with Man Horan Monis during his 2009 court appearance for sending harrasing letters to families of deceased soldiers.

“Everyone has been impressed by the speed of the NSW response, the thoroughness of the preparations they made and the professionalism of the action they took once it became obvious that people inside the cafe were being taken out by this deluded and sick individual,” he said.

“I think every Sydneysider can feel quietly proud of the way this city has handled one of the most difficult 36 hours in our history.

“People have gone about their business and in the aftermath of the end of the siege last night, people have responded with typical Australian decency and generosity and the spontaneous shrine which has developed now in Martin Place is so much an expression of the innate goodness and decency which is a mark of the Australian character.”

Mr Baird has also thanked Sydneysiders for their handling of the incident.

“This city is amazing,” he said.

“Its people are incredible, and what you are seeing in Martin Place right now as it unfolds, it is almost as if a beating heart of the city is being put in place.

“That’s what those flowers represent to me. It is showing us that this city is alive. It is beating. Despite the challenges, despite the tragedies we have endured, it is people saying they care,” he said.

Mr Abbott has pledged to do whatever is humanly possible to keep the community safe and has used the event to highlight the need for the next round of proposed national security laws, that would force telecommunications companies to hold their customer’s data for up to two years.