A man has been charged following a series of raids by counterterrorism police in Melbourne on Friday. The raids were conducted in relation to a siege on Monday that left three police officers injured and a building clerk dead.
Kane Dalrymple, 31, did not apply for bail when he faced Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on Saturday charged with carrying on the business of a firearms dealer without a licence, along with other weapons offences. None of the charges are terrorism related.
On Monday, Yacqub Khayre, a 29-year-old Somali-born Australian, was at a serviced apartment complex in the beachside suburb of Brighton with an escort he had arranged to meet through an agency.
Khayre killed Kai Hao, who worked as the building’s clerk, before taking the escort hostage. He emerged from a ground-floor apartment about two hours later firing at police. Three police officers were injured before Khayre was shot dead. He was in possession of two guns, including a sawn-off shotgun.
“This is for IS, this is for al-Qaida,” he reportedly told Channel Seven in a phone call he made during the siege, though police have said they are unsure if Khayre really had links to either of those organisations.
At 5am on Friday, counterterrorism and Victoria police swept through properties in the suburbs of Ascot Vale, Glenroy and Gladstone Park in Melbourne’s north-west, as they tried to determine who supplied Khayre with the guns.
They seized a fake gun and a laptop among other evidence, and arrested a man who was later released without charge. They also questioned two other men, who were not charged.
On Friday afternoon, two more homes were searched in the northern suburbs of West Meadows and Reservoir, and police arrested and charged Dalrymple.
Police said the raids were not related to any threat of a terrorist attack, but were carried out in relation to the alleged supply of firearms to Khayre.
Dalrymple is due to return to court for a committal mention on 25 July.
