Two hostages and gunman Man Haron Monis have died in a horrific end to yesterday’s 16-hour siege at Martin Place in Sydney.
Monis took 17 hostages inside the Lindt Café at 9.45am on Monday morning and held them until 2am on Tuesday.
Five hostages escaped from the building between 4pm and 5pm on Monday, and another five escaped in the early hours of Tuesday, shortly before the police surrounding the café heard explosions and screams from inside the building.
When sounds of explosion and gunfire rang out, police decided to activate their emergency operation. They stormed the building and killed the gunman.
Tragically, two of the hostages also died in the early hours of Tuesday morning, with three other hostages and one police officer injured.
For the majority of Monday, the only information the world had about the gunman was that he was armed and politically motivated. Now, we know he has a long history of violence against women, sexual assault and harassment.
Monis has been known to the NSW police for seven years. He was first convicted of a crime in 2011, when he was found writing offensive letters to the families of Australian soldiers killed in Afghanistan. He was convicted of 12 counts of using a postal service in an offensive manner. He has been fighting his conviction ever since, losing a final bid to have his case heard by the High Court on Friday, December 12.
Since his court battle over the postal harassment began in 2011, Monis has been charged with several other offences, all of them involving violence.
In 2013, Monis was charged with being an accessory – before and after the fact – to the “brutal” murder of his ex-wife, Noleen Hayson Pal. Monis and his current partner, Amirah Droudis, were accused of planning and committing the murder, in which Droudis stabbed Pal eighteen times and set her body on fire.
Monis and ex-wife Pal were embroiled in a custody battle at the time of the murder. The murder was committed on April 21, 2013.
In December of 2013, Monis and Droudis both applied for bail. After a three-hour bail hearing, the judge granted bail to both offenders. The judge said he did so because he considered neither Monis nor Droudis to be a threat to public safety. He said the only threat they posed was to the deceased.
The next month, in January of 2014, a woman went to the police with an accusation that Monis had sexually assaulted her during “spiritual healing” sessions. Monis was arrested and charged for this assault in March of 2014.
The complaint sparked a broader police investigation into Monis’ possible history of sexual assault. Two months ago, in October, Monis was charged with 40 counts of sexual assault, including 22 counts of aggravated sexual assault and 14 counts of aggravated indecent assault. For the second time in twelve months, Monis was released on bail.
Manny Conditsis, the lawyer who defended Monis against the accessory to murder charge, said that Monis’ knowledge that he was on bail for a string of very serious crimes may have led him to commit yesterday’s siege.
“Knowing he was on bail for very serious offences, knowing that while he was in custody some terrible things happened to him, I thought he may consider that he’s got nothing to lose,” he told ABC News.
“Hence participating in something as desperate and outrageous as this.”
Conditsis also said it is likely Monis was operating alone.
“This is a one-off random individual,” he said. “It’s not a concerted terrorism event or act. It’s a damaged-goods individual who’s done something outrageous.”