Summary
That concludes evidence today. This afternoon the coronial inquest has heard:
-
Man Haron Monis was allowed to serve his court ordered community service at a college which had a childcare centre on the grounds despite also facing charges of being an accessory to murder.
- An Amnesty International worker who met with Monis when he complained his human rights were being violated said he was a man who was “standing on a soap box, he was painting himself as the noble victim”.
- Monis believed he was being persecuted by customs officials when they asked him questions as he left and arrived in the country. Once he even flew to New Zealand and back on the one day to “bamboozle” customs officers. He linked his treatment to the treatment of Bali bomber Abu Bakar Bashir and drug smuggler Schapelle Corby
- His solicitor, Franklin Arguedas, said Monis wanted to be a “big person” and “treated like the prime minister”.
- Monis told his former boss, Hassan Zoabi, that he was “well connected” in Iran.
- In an interview with Amnesty International, Monis was concerned about losing his citizenship because of charges relating to offensive letters sent to the families of Australian soldiers killed in Afghanistan.
- The three journalists - two reporters and a cameraman - who were booted from the inquest for taking photos on Monday have been allowed back in to cover the proceedings.
- Tomorrow we will hear from psychiatrist and other mental health workers who were involved in assessing and treating Monis over the years. He was last treated for mental health issues in 2011.
- Michael Safi and I will record another podcast on the day’s events this afternoon, in the mean time you can listen to our take on the first day here.
- Safi’s story on today’s hearing is here.
See you again, same time, same place, tomorrow.
Monis was unable to enrol in courses at the college as he could not afford the test to prove his proficiency in English, which is compulsory if English is not someone’s first language.
Monis did attend a class and Rebecca Cundasamy said feedback from those in the was mixed.
Students and a lecturer said that he had been quite talkative in class, a little confrontational even, he was wanting to get across his own view, rather than lecturer’s views...also that he had been what we would call a little paranoid and asked if we recorded the classes and if they would be passed on to anyone.
The lecturer said he would be welcomed back but Cundasamy said that she thought the students found him disruptive to their learning.
Monis came and spoke to Rebecca Cundasamy to talk about courses available at the Bexley campus of the Salvation Army’s Booth College. She gave him brochures and a handbook on the courses, he was interested in history, law and religion.
The next witness called is Rebecca Cundasamy. She works for the Salvation Army as a community fundraiser and prior to that worked at the Salvation Army Bexley campus of Booth College, which means she worked at the college Man Haron Monis served his community service at.
Robert Mills says he could not believe it when he found out Man Haron Monis was the gunman who took 18 people hostage at the Lindt cafe.
I was totally shocked. I felt a whole lot of remorse and sadness for the families, for what had happened, and i couldn’t actually bring myself to believe that he could have done that. I had to be reassured that he actually did do that.
Did Mills ever think Monis was mentally unstable?
He seemed fine to me.
With that Mills’ evidence is done.
Man Haron Monis arrived at his community service on occasion on a motorbike other workers described as a “cheap and nasty Chinese brand”.
Robert Mills, who oversaw Monis’ community service, said Monis mostly arrived at community service on foot but occasionally would arrive on a motorbike.
He was in the leathers and had a Nazi-like helmet on...it was amusing.
Other people at the community service said the bike was a “cheap and nasty Chinese brand” and Monis later kicked a pedal off it when he was trying to start it.
Mills described Monis as a grandstanding man,
You didn’t have to go and ask him much, he would approach you and try to be dominant. Even when he was talking to students, he would be the centre of the conversation.
Monis stopped his community service in April, eight months before the siege at the Lindt cafe.
He give me this book he had written, he was so proud of it, it was all in Arabic...probably wished I still had it.
Man Haron Monis was “pretty lazy” when he was doing community service, but also “very polite”, according to the Salvation Army’s Robert Mills.
Mills said Monis was keen to get his community service done quickly because he thought it would work in his favour in another court case.
Man was pretty lazy around the place, he didn’t do anything in a hurry, he was quite slow in what he did. Later on he told me he had a heart condition. When i did give him painting jobs he was very enthusiastic, he did a good job on that.
Mills had Monis paint collection boxes for the school and then later asked him to paint some crosses for an ordination for cadets.
He wasn’t aggressive or anything like that, I asked him to paint crosses that were going into ordination for cadets in town, we just needed them painted, he said ‘look Robert I don’t want to do that”, I could tell the way he said that he had a reason for it and I assume that it probably was part of his beliefs. It offended or impinged on his beliefs so i didn’t [make him do it].
Mills said Monis was “softly spoken, very polite” in the initial interview.
Robert Mills administered the community order program for the Salvation Army and was in charge of maintaining eight acres of land for Booth College in the Sydney suburb of Bexley.
He became aware of Man Haron Monis in 2013 when he was referred to Mills because he had been required to undertake community service after facing charges over writing offensive letters to families of Australian soldiers killed in Afghanistan.
Monis had been sentenced to 300 hours community service. He was also facing charges of being an accessory to murder.
On the surface it appeared he would not be any danger to anyone at the college, students or otherwise...I was very sure in myself that there was no danger and my superior had the same view.”
Mills said there was also a childcare centre at the college. He said Monis was monitored very closely.
Lunch is done. We now have the last witness listed today called to the stand, Robert Mills, who is appearing for the Salvation Army to speak about Monis’ community service between April, 2013 and April, 2014.
Summary
With the inquest adjourned for lunch it’s time to take a breath and some stock of what we have seen and heard today:
- Man Haron Monis believed he was being persecuted by customs officials when they asked him questions as he left and arrived in the country. Once he even flew to New Zealand and back on the one day to “bamboozle” customs officers. He linked his treatment to the treatment of Bali bomber Abu Bakar Bashir and drug smuggler Schapelle Corby
- His solicitor, Franklin Arguedas, said Monis wanted to be a “big person” and “treated like the prime minister”.
- Monis told his former boss, Hassan Zoabi, that he was “well connected” in Iran.
- In an interview with Amnesty International, Monis was concerned about losing his citizenship because of charges relating to offensive letters sent to the families of Australian soldiers killed in Afghanistan.
- Three journalists have been booted from covering the inquest over photography on Monday. There was confusion over what was and was not allowed as the inquest was being live streamed for anyone in the public to view.
Just a side note on some clashes between media and sheriffs here at the inquest. Three journalists have been booted from covering the inquest because of photography on Monday. At least two of the people barred took photos of the screen being viewed by media. There was confusion over whether this was allowed because it was being live streamed, viewable by anyone in the public in Australia, at the time.
There is some discontent as at least one journalist was not at the briefing yesterday. None of the journalists who took the photos did so in the knowledge that is was not allowed, it was because of genuine confusion and media are quite angry that no discretion seems to be shown over an honest mistake.
A letter written by Amnesty International to onshore refugee program of department of immigration in 1997 in support of Monis’s refugee application is being discussed.
Wood was not at Amnesty International at the time but says she understands the letter was written because of a request from the London office of Amnesty International, after it had verified certain elements of Monis’ story.
The hearing is adjourned for lunch. I will write a summary of the day so far soon.
The three issues Man Haron Monis wanted Amnesty International help with were:
- in relation to death threats made by members of the public
- request for Amnesty assistance in event he was found guilty [of charges relating to sending offensive letters to families of Australian soldiers] and his citizenship cancelled. he was hoping Amnesty International might be able to prevent him being returned to Iran.
- Third request was whether it was against his human rights to cancel citizenship and whether he could claim refugee status elsewhere.
Some of the emails sent to Monis after it was made public he was writing to soldiers’ families are being read out. Catherine Wood agrees they are offensive and at times racist.
Some fragments read out say “your mum is a pagan slut” and refer to bashing Monis’ head in the street then washing his “filthy blood” from the footpath.
Catherine Wood says she had the impression Monis may have mental health problems from her interview with him when she was at Amnesty International.
He had a strong sense of self importance, delusions of importance, an example of this is when he referred to writing to the Queen and being outraged when she did not personally respond in the time he expected.
Wood described Monis as “grandstanding”.
She said she directed Monis to police and lawyers as he did not meet Amnesty International’s criteria for support.
I didn’t enjoy the interview.
Catherine Wood, the legal and governance manager for Amnesty International in 2010 is now on the stand. She met with Monis once, in August 2010.
When she met Monis he was referring to himself as Sheik Haron. Wood interviewed Monis after he had written to Amnesty International claiming his human rights were being violated.
During the interview Monis did not shake Wood’s hand and did not look at her at all. He addressed all his comments to the male volunteer case worker.
One of the things that is memorable about this interview is he didn’t look at me once ... this was noticeable because I was clearly the one conducting the interview.
Wood was asking the questions but Monis only addressed the male case worker.
That’s something that stuck in my mind, I don’t remember everyone I have interviews with.
Monis brought in with him a bundle of documents, consisting of statements Monis made from the Downing centre and printouts from websites.
Ostensibly he came to talk to us about death threats he had received in relation to the letters he had written to the families of the soldiers who had died in Afghanistan. He had the actual emails with him ... then he talked about other things.
Monis complained about, among other things:
- his tent being attacked outside of NSW parliament house
- a carjacking in Liverpool
- his name changes which he said were for security reasons
- his letters to various public figures
- his complaints about Channel Seven.
Wood says:
It was very much like he was standing on a soap box, he was painting himself as a noble victim ... it was a story of victimhood and persecution. It was nonstop.
Updated
John Valastro received a text message from Man Haron Monis threatening a protest at the airport after he gave him a tour of the customs area.
Valastro said when he reviewed CCTV of Monis’ interactions with customs officials he was “almost goading” them.
His behaviour was almost goading people to come towards him. He would stand in a queue then move to another queue then be looking at a customs officer almost as if to say “come and talk to me”.
Monis texted Valastro after the meeting saying his trip was good but he continued to be treated badly by customs official. He wrote in the text message:
I am preparing myself for protest in front of airport, I will chain my legs and hands, I hope God helps me in this movement which is for justice.
Valastro finishes his evidence saying he did not believe Monis was a religious leader as he was too erratic.
Back to John Valastro’s evidence on the stand. He was the director of the passenger branch of Australian customs and border protection service and dealt with Man Haron Monis’ complaints about customs in 2005.
He says he explained to Monis that customs officers were just doing their jobs.
I observed his threshold for questions was quite low. Any time a customs officer asked a personal question it would seem to generate an excessive response.
The sorts of questions customs officers ask are “where have you come from today” and “where are you travelling to?”
Valastro said Monis had an emotional effect from travelling to and from New Zealand. He said Monis said he was being persecuted by customs official in Australia and New Zealand.
Valastro took Monis on a tour to show him customs officials doing their jobs.
He says his impression was that Monis found it difficult to accept the reality of the situation.
I felt I was constantly having to enforce over and over again how routine this was and his reaction was part of the problem, he was triggering increased interest of officials because of his agitation. I was also weary of his claims of persecution. I thought he was emotionally challenged. He ranged from being anxious to being evasive to being anxious.
Updated
We now have John Valastro on the stand. He was the director of the passenger branch of Australian customs and border protection service and dealt with Man Haron Monis’ complaints about customs in 2005.
They are discussing the procedures which take place when a member of the public makes a complaint against customs officers.
My colleague Michael Safi has generously expanded on the evidence we heard earlier about Monis complainng he was being treated like Abu Bakar Bashir and Schapelle Corby:
We’ve been given another glimpse this morning of just how unmoored from reality Man Haron Monis could be. Nearly a decade before the Sydney siege the gunman became obsessed with the idea he was the target of a vendetta by customs officials.
His solicitor, Franklin Arguedas, has told the inquest that Monis became incensed by the number of times he was being stopped for random checks at the airport. Arguedas said Monis “drew a connection between his treatment and the treatment of Corby and Abu Bakar Bashir”.
The idea, as we can construct it, is that Monis saw the relatively light sentence given to Bashir, a mastermind of the Bali Bombing, and the harsh 20-year term given the the drug smuggler Corby. He believed that Customs was looking to get revenge by “wantonly targeting Muslim clerics [such as Monis] with the intention to give them a hard time”, Arguedas said.
With that Franklin Arguedas’s evidence is done. We are adjourned for 10 minutes.
So what was Monis’ motivation? Franklin Arguedas said he wanted to be treated like the prime minister.
I just thought this guy wanted to be someone, he wanted to be a big person, and whenever he arrived [in the country] he didn’t want to have to clear immigration, he wanted to be treated like the prime minister. He wanted to come in and out of the country like you come in and out of your house.
I don’t know whether i would have thought he was insane. That never entered my mind. I just thought he was a difficult person.
When solicitor Arguedas suggested Monis seek therapy:
He got angry and told me not to speak to him like that. I could see the anger on his face.
Monis ended up owing Arguedas close to $1,500 which was never paid. When Arguedas tried to chase the debt Monis threatened him.
In 2005 Franklin Arguedas accompanied Monis to Sydney airport for a meeting with customs officers over Monis’ complaints he was being targeted whenever he went to the airport.
During the meeting he said he was being set up or framed by the Australian government.
He would say he had an inkling, a feeling that he was being set up by the Australian government. He would not really elaborate, it was something that he was churning in his mind.
The customs officers wanted to finalise the problem and have a meeting to explain they did not target people, they picked them randomly. During the meeting, Monis mostly sat quietly occasionally asking questions.
Arguedas thought the meeting went well and Monis would be pleased, but he soon complained again and Arguedas suggested counselling.
He said ‘are you telling me I’m mad?’ I said ‘not at all, I’m saying perhaps you might benefit from seeking counselling somewhere. They may show you the western mind operates in a different way.”
In 2005 Monis was complaining he couldn’t sleep, that he was being harassed by the system. Monis also wrote letters drawing connections between his treatment and that of Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Bashir and convicted drug smuggler Schapelle Corby.
He said Australian officials were “wantonly targeting Muslim clerics with the intention to give them a hard time”.
Arguedas said Monis complained about being “picked” for security searches at airports. He requested a letter be sent to customs about it.
He believed that he was being picked on [by customs officials]. That it wasn’t a random search, it was a targeted search.
Arguedas was uncomfortable with how Monis wanted the letter to be worded to customs.
The inquest has heard Monis flew to New Zealand one morning and came back on the same afternoon in an effort to “bamboozle” customs.
Updated
Franklin Arguedas, a solicitor for Monis in relation to his immigration application and customs complaints, has taken the stand.
He took on Monis as a client in 2004 and says his office had difficulty getting Monis to show identification and give his address.
Monis told Arguedas that he moved around a lot and couldn’t provide an address. He said the reason he changed his name so much was that he “previously was a very high officer of the Iranian government”.
He went on to elaborate that he would be taken out of the country by helicopter to a different nation without a passport. Either the American government or the Australian government would lift him from I’m assuming here and he would be giving information [to those governments].
Monis also tried to get Arguedas to take part in a scheme that he said would earn Monis between $1m and $2m.
He said he knew the whereabouts of an individual wanted by Israel but that he could not be the frontman, he hd to work behind me because of his identity again...he wanted me to arrange something, how the ransom would be paid, and that we would share that amount of money... I thought he was harmless, I thought maybe he would have a scheme like these Nigerian emails people get from time to time. The other thought was “I don’t want to get involved in this type of thing..it’s not worth my risk”.
Arguedas said he had lunch with Monis two to three times a month for 18 months. He said he once tried to meet Monis in Lakemba but Monis did not want to go there. At the time Monis told Arguedas he was an Ayatollah and would dress in Muslim clerical clothing.
Hassan Zoabi, a former boss of Man Haron Monis, is continuing his evidence. He gave a reference for Monis in the 1990s saying Monis was a “pleasant individual”.
Zoabi had worked with Monis for two years and says he did not hesitate to provide the reference which Monis said was to renew his security licence.
The handwritten reference said Monis was “very honest and trustworthy... a pleasant individual who would go out of his way to help others”.
Zoabi says Monis would ask lots of questions about Australia’s legal system and how the government worked.
He was always thinking...he very rarely [laughed or joked], I would really have to go out of my way and say a good joke for him to crack a smile.
Zoabi did not see Monis again after leaving his job in 1999. He said when he saw footage of him during the Sydney siege he thought he was him but because Monis was using a different name in the 1990s Zoabi thought he was just “being crazy”.
Hassan Zoabi has taken the stand. He is currently the centre manager for shopping centre in Sydney area and in 1997 was a caretaker manager for another shopping centre.
It was in 1997 that he met Man Haron Monis. Zoabi needed to hire what’s known as a “static guard”, someone who observes what’s going on and wears a uniform. As Zoabi put it “someone the public can see”.
Zoabi had daily contact with Monis over two years and had many conversations. Zoabi says Monis’ manners were “impeccable”. On what Monis would tell Zoabi:
That he was from Iran and that he was well connected, that he was related to people that were rulers in Iran at the time. He said he was the son-in-law of one of them. He would say Iran is going to make headlines on the world stage soon.
Zoabi says Monis did not specify how Iran was going to make headlines.
Monis initially tried to discuss religion but then realised Zoabi wasn’t interested in that topic.
He did mention he was attached to the clergy in Iran and that he prayed five times a day. The fact he had a beard at the time indicated to me that he was religious.
Zoabi says he knew Monis was a Shia Muslim and Zoabi himself is a Sunni, but back then “it was not an issue”, Zoabi says “at the time a Muslim was a Muslim”.
Zoabi says Monis was clean, tidy, punctual and well mannered.
He was impeccable, he did it in a polite manner. He had that thing about him you knew he was polite. He was softly spoken, he did his job very well.
Zoabi says he knew Monis was married in Iran but he did not know he had any children.
I have some details on some of the witnesses we will be hearing from today:
Hassan Zoabi - he was a referee for Monis for security guard work in 1999.
Franklin Arguedas - solicitor for Monis in relation to immigration application and customs complaint.
John Valastro - director of passenger branch of Australian customs and border protection service who dealt with Monis complaints about customs in 2005.
Robert Mills - appearing for Salvation Army to speak about Monis community service between april 2013 and april 2014.
Catherine Wood - legal and governance manager for Amnesty International, she saw Monis in August 2010.
Good morning, you join us for the second day of the latest segment of the coronial inquest into the deaths of Sydney siege hostages Tori Johnson and Katrina Dawson and gunman Man Haron Monis (phew, take a breath after that sentence).
This segment is focused on Monis, his life and what his possible motivations for the siege were. This also comes back to two of the fundamental questions - could the siege have been prevented? And, was it a terrorist attack?
The inquest is overseen by coroner Michael Barnes and yesterday counsel assisting Jeremy Gormly, SC, and junior counsel assisting, Sophie Callan, delivered their opening statement.
We learned Monis briefly tried to join the bikie gang the Rebels - members labelled him “weird” - and he claimed he was an Iranian spy when seeking asylum in Australia in 1996. You can read Michael Safi’s report on yesterday’s hearing here.
Safi and I have also recorded a brief (10 minute) podcast on the first day, and we’ll be aiming to do that each day. It is a conversation about what struck us about evidence on the day, where the inquest may be heading and the questions raised. It’s called Three Down, and you can find it here. I’m told it also might be up on iTunes soon.
Today we are set to hear from six witnesses, primarily immigration officials who dealt with Monis and people who worked with him in his early years in Australia.
