The man who was killed after stabbing a passerby to death and injuring two others in Melbourne had his passport cancelled in 2015 because he wanted to fight for Islamic State in Syria.
But despite being known to the police and intelligence agencies, Hassan Khalif Shire Ali, 30, was not being actively monitored before Friday afternoon’s Bourke Street attack.
Shire Ali, drove a 4x4 vehicle loaded with gas bottles into the city centre, ignited the vehicle into a ball of flames and then attacked passers-by with a knife.
Police shot him at the scene and he died in hospital on Friday night.
The deceased victim has been identified as Sisto Malaspina, 74, the owner of popular Italian cafe Pellegrini’s.
Tasmanian retiree Rod Patterson, 58, and a second man, a 24-year-old security guard from Hampton Park, are recovering from surgery in the Royal Melbourne hospital.
Joint counter-terrorism investigators were conducting raids at two homes of relatives of the attacker in Werribee and Meadows Heights on Saturday morning.
Australian Federal Police acting deputy commissioner Ian McCartney said the terrorism threat had been mitigated and it was limited to the lone attacker.
Authorities cancelled Shire Ali’s passport in 2015 when the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation assessed that he was planning to travel to Syria to fight with Isis extremists, McCartney said.
“The assessment was made that while he held radicalised views he did not pose a threat in relation to national security,” McCartney said.
“The event yesterday for us is a reality check, even with the fall of the [Isis caliphate in Iraq and Syria)]”.
Victorian police chief commissioner Graham Ashton praised the efforts of the two police officers who confronted Shire Ali and said they were receiving emotional support.
The officer who shot him had been out of the police academy just three months ago.
Shire Ali had a history of minor drug, theft and driving offences, lived in Melbourne’s north-western suburbs and came to Australia from Somalia in the 1990s, Ashton said.
A homeless man who used a shopping trolley to help the police stop the attacker is being hailed as a hero.
The prime minister, Scott Morrison, said that while he would be the first to protect religious freedom in this country, religious extremism needed to be called out.
“There is a special responsibility on religious leaders to protect their religious
communities and to ensure that dangerous teachings and ideologies do not take root here,” he told reporters in Sydney.
Morrison is expected to travel to Canberra for security briefings on Sunday afternoon.
