The Sydney siege gunman had no direct electronic contact with Islamic State, a coronial inquest has heard.
Man Haron Monis was also assessed as no threat to himself or others and as having no mental health issues just months before he took 18 people hostage in the Lindt cafe in December of last year.
Detective senior constable Murray Northey worked in the fraud and cyber squad last year and gave evidence on the electronic life of Monis at the coronial inquest into his death as well as the deaths of hostages Katrina Dawson and Tori Johnson.
Northey said to his knowledge, police still had not found any trace of direct electronic contact between Monis and Islamic State.
Emails between Monis and one of his daughters in Iran were also read out which showed a young woman missing her father. The daughter had just got married about the middle of last year.
“Hello dad, how are you? Happy new year. I called aunty [name withheld] but couldn’t get through, mum said you permitted the marriage to go ahead,” she wrote.
“... I had other men wanting to marry me and I chose him because of what you said, he said he would come with me to you where you are outside of Iran. I want you to know that my wish is to be next to you for the rest of my life and I promise I won’t interfere with your private life.”
Monis replied a few months later saying he wanted his daughter and her husband to visit but he had to finalise some court matters first.
The court matters related to more than 40 charges of sexual assault as well as being an accessory to murder. Monis had undergone health assessments to prepare him for prison but two clinical nurses gave conflicting assessments of his mental state.
One, Marco Rec, did not have Monis’ file and had to rely on him to detail the charges he was facing. Monis lied and said it was for common assault.
He also lied about his mental health history saying he had never seen a psychiatrist or psychologist, when he had seen at least three, and that he had never taken psychiatric medication or being diagnosed with mental illnesses.
Monis had been diagnosed with depression, anxiety and chronic schizophrenia at different points and taken anti-psychotic medication as well as anti-depressants.
Rec assessed Monis as showing no signs of mental illness. Another clinical nurse, Anna Grigore is one of the first witnesses to say Monis acted in an intimidating way around her, others have described him as “polite” and “courteous”.
Grigore was assessing Monis and when she brought up his sexual assault charges he became agitated, stood up in the small room and tried to leave.
Grigore referred Monis to a psychiatrist for further assessment.
The hearing continues.
