Summary
The testimony of the first witness, detective Inspector Angelo Memmolo, is finished. We expect to see him back at another segment. With that the inquest has been adjourned, tomorrow’s witnesses will be giving evidence about Man Haron Monis’ early employment history and immigration. You can read my colleague Michael Safi’s report on the day’s proceedings here.
Today we have learned:
- Monis had been diagnosed with depression and schizophrenia at different times in the past few years, counsel assisting the inquest, Jeremy Gormly, SC, has told the inquest.
- Monis was a member of the Rebels motorcycle gang for a few months but was viewed as “weird” by other members.
- By 2014 he was spiralling our of control with no money, no standing in any organisation, he had lost custody of his children and had not made the impact on Australia he thought he would have.
- The crime scene is the most complicated seen by some senior police and the trajectory of bullets is still being examined as well as DNA and fingerprints from the scene.
- Monis claimed persecution in Iran when he applied for asylum in Australia in 1996. He claimed he was a spy who had become disenchanted and also that his anti-government poetry proved he was a dissident in Iran. It is still not clear why exactly Monis left Iran.
- Monis ran a “spiritual healing and clairvoyant” business for years in the noughties. One of his tax returns showed he earned $120,000 in one year from the business.
- Monis was on bail from numerous sexual assault charges when he took 18 people hostage in the Lindt cafe. The charges stemmed from his business with allegations ranging from inappropriate touching to penetration. He would tell victims the sexual energy was needed to cure them of bad spirits and black magic.
- Monis was strangely compliant with paperwork and notified authorities of his name changes and when he moved house which has made him easier to investigate.
Thanks for joining us today, we will be back with rolling updates from the inquest tomorrow morning.
#sydneysiege gunman, Man Haron Monis, when he briefly joined the Rebels bikie gang. They thought he was "weird". pic.twitter.com/uIo75OrW8h
— Bridie Jabour (@bkjabour) May 25, 2015
Updated
The gun Man Horan Monis used during the siege was more close to 40 years old.
Detective Inspector Angelo Memmolo has identified it as a French manufactured model, a 12 gauge pump action shot gun with a United States stamp on it. The barrel and butt were shortened. It carried four shotgun rounds, three in magazine and one in the breach. It was manufactured between 1959 and 1969 and there are only three of its kind that have been legally imported into Australia.
There is no record of the gun Monis used being one of the three legally imported from America.
"The most complicated crime scene I've seen"
The crime scene that was the Lindt cafe at the end of the siege is still being examined by police, according to detective Inspector Angelo Memmolo.
It’s probably the most complicated crime scene I’ve seen in my years in police and certainly 10 years in homicide, surely by the amount of ballistic material, the fact it was contaminated by officers saving hostages, so involuntary contamination, moving of tables chairs and other material [made it complicated].
Memmolo says police are still trying to define trajectory of bullets and DNA and finger print work is being analysed. The police team have also been examining footage recorded by media outlets.
Officer in charge of the siege investigation, Detective Inspector Angelo Memmolo is defining what a critical incident is for the inquest:
A critical incident involves member or members of the NSW police force in a situation where there is the death of another person or people.
Memmolo was appointed critical incident investigator of the siege. He was called just after 2am on December 16 after the police had stormed the cafe and three people had died.
As part of the critical incident investigation police looked at whether anyone helped Man Haron Monis, they examined hostages phones and social media, examined how Monis got his gun and interviewed police who were at the Lindt cafe siege.
First witness called
The officer in charge of the siege investigation, Detective Inspector Angelo Memmolo, has been called to give evidence at the coronial inquest.
Jeremy Gormly, SC, is leading the questioning. He is asking a few technical questions about the statement Memmolo has already made to the inquest. Fixing up dates etc.
There is discussion between lawyers now on proposed non-publication orders. I am very limited in what I can say about the submissions and potential orders, so just know that the inquest is still happening and I am still watching and listening.
Counsel assisting Jeremy Gormly SC and junior counsel assisting Sophie Callan have finished their opening statement on the life of Man Haron Monis.
There has been a brief adjournment as the court room is being rearranged. We could be hearing from the first witness in the next few minutes, though as I understand it a decision is still being made.
By 2014 Man Horan Monis was “a man who was spiralling out of control”, Jeremy Gormly tells the inquest.
He had no money. The Islamic community did not accept him. He was facing a lengthy jail sentence for sexual assaults.
He had few friends and no standing with any group or institution, his attempts to join other groups had failed. He had a criminal record was facing future serous charges, he had lost custody battles for his children, he had made no impact of note on the Australian political scene.
The likelihood of a lengthy jail sentence was high. His grandiose self assessments of the past were simply not coming to fruition. He may have found all of that puzzling and seen it in a different light. He had been administratively compliant, maintained secrecy about his private life, he declared himself a pro-Australian pacifist and all of his efforts for a public profile had failed.
Gormly stops the biography of Monis just before the siege. He says Monis had intent to hold a siege because he took a gun, a flag and a carefully designed backpack to look like it had bomb in it. The gun had been recently obtained, just for how long he was planning the siege remains to be seen.
Monis may have formed a clear understanding of what he was doing and expected to negotiate or talk his way out of the cafe with his demands met. On the other hand, Gormly says, Monis may not have formulated any clear outcome.
Reality for him may not have hit home until many hours into the siege.
Man Horan Monis was a member of the Rebels motorcycle gang for a few months but was viewed as “weird”. My wonderful colleague Michael Safi has taken the notes while I was prepping the post on Monis’ mental health:
Safi reports:
Sophie Callan has just completed a brief detour into Monis’ few months as a member of the Rebels motorcycle gang.
Few members of the group have given statements to the inquest, but some have said that “no one in the club really liked him and he was weird”, Callan says. Others found him “strange and weird”.
He would say he had a lot of money, but then he didn’t have any,” Callan read.
Ultimately Monis was rejected by the rebels and they took his motorbike around the middle of 2013.
Callan reflects that Monis’ time as a biker might appear incongruous. But his “willingness to change his appearance, adopt the garb of a new persona, and his attraction to a group that he saw as exercising power an influence” are telling, she says.
His constant goal in life appears to have been achieving significance.
Man Horan Monis had been diagnosed with depression and schitzophrenia at different times in the past few years, counsel assisting the inquest, Jeremy Gormly, SC, has told the inquest.
He is continuing his opening remarks and says Monis had various relationships with various women, often at the same time, but was quite secretive with his few friends.
About 2005 was when it seems he started developing some mental health problems.
Dr Murray, a psychiatrist to whom Monis was referred to in 2005 no longer has medical records for that period. Dr Murray himself can recall Monis as the only patient he has treated who wanted to pay cash for consultation to avoid a Medicare record.
A letter exists showing Murray prescribed psychiatric medication for stress induced major depressive disorder and panic disorder. The letter appears to have been written for an airline or some similar purpose.
In one session Monis conveyed impression of being persecuted by the state but he did not attend again until 2010.
Monis was stressed and angry in 2009, according to GP notes and later complained of lethargy and stress.
In April, 2010, Monis was taken to hospital by ambulance after he collapsed in the street with leg weakness. He reported personal problems and stress.
He collapsed again and was brought into hospital with a “bizarre episode” as described by one paramedic, another described it as a “psychotic episode”. In May 2010 Monis saw another psychiatrist and was prescribed medication under which an improvement in his behaviour was recorded. The doctor concluded he was suffering from a form of schizophrenia but with a high level of function. Schizophrenia was at the time a broad term.
Monis saw another psychologist in 2010 and said he was feeling stressed because he had been living alone and hadn’t seen family in 13 years. He doesn’t seem to have spoken about Australian history. In 2010 Monis was in regular attendance with mental health professionals.
In September 2011 he told his psychiatrist he was well an no longer needed to see her.
Before the inquest resumes after the lunch break I’ve had a quick look at the angles my fellow reporters in the room have gone with for their stories. It is a deluge of information here and there’s no correct lede, it’s always fascinating to see what others found interesting and newsworthy:
The ABC is reporting Man Haron Monis repeatedly boasted that he was well connected in Iran but “was prone to grandiose claims”.
The Daily Telegraph is running with Monis making $125,000 a year from his clairvoyancy and spiritual healing business where he threatened clients with black magic if they did not have sex with him.
The Australian is reporting that the inquest has heard Monis was “a complex and secretive man” with few friends and given to “sweeping declarations ... consistent with a pattern of falsehoods and grandiosity”.
Summary
The inquest has adjourned for lunch so let’s use the time to assess what we have learnt this morning:
- Man Haron Monis claimed persecution in Iran when he applied for asylum in Australia in 1996. He claimed he was a spy who had become disenchanted and also that his anti-government poetry proved he was a dissident in Iran. It is still not clear why exactly Monis left Iran.
- Monis ran a “spiritual healing and clairvoyant” business for years in the noughties. One of his tax returns showed he earned $120,000 in one year from the business.
- Monis was on bail from numerous sexual assault charges when he took 18 people hostage in the Lindt cafe. The charges stemmed from his business with allegations ranging from inappropriate touching to penetration. He would tell victims the sexual energy was needed to cure them of bad spirits and black magic.
- Monis was strangely compliant with paperwork and notified authorities of his name changes and when he moved house which has made him easier to investigate.
- The coronial inquest will be undertaken in segments with the next one due at the end of August. The inquest does not expect to hear evidence from the people held hostage until the last segment. This segment is focussed on Monis, his motivations for the siege and if he could have been stopped.
Man Haron Monis undertook different courses where he caused various problems. He failed to attend different parts, made unreasonable administrative demands about how his name was written, was disruptive in class and undertook courses for which he did not have the required level of English.
The inquest is being shown videos of Monis protesting in various places around Sydney. Mostly outside parliament and courts.
Man Haron Monis wrote abusive letters to family members of Australian soldiers killed in Afghanistan and was taken to court over them. He wrote a second letter to one family asking why they did not thank him for his first letter. Gormly is not keen to go into the “offensive” detail of the letters but says he would describe the soldier in terms that suggest that what they did was criminal”.
Monis’ second letter to one family said:
I would expect a letter of appreciate [sic] for my sympathy letter, suddenly I was shocked when I read in the Daily Telegraph that you said you were hurt by my letter. I have a few questions for you.
Monis went through a number of matters more or less questioning the family about why they were hurt by his letter. He re-quoted parts of his first letter and asked “were you offended by this”?
A sergeant from the Australian Federal Police (AFP) visited Monis to tell him to stop writing to the family. Monis responded “I can write letters to whoever I want”.
Updated
The inquest has just been shown a video of Man Haron Monis giving a lecture in the Sydney suburb of Granville. He is speaking in Farsi.
Channel 7 have posted some stills from the video:
Video of Man Monis' lecture in Granville being show at the Sydney siege inquest. #siegeinquest pic.twitter.com/mfn6PWCdTf
— 7 News Sydney (@7NewsSydney) May 25, 2015
Monis’ Australian wife gave birth to two sons but Monis didn’t seem to show much interest and is not registered on their birth certificate. He did not marry his Australian wife in a formal ceremony and she describes in 2008 “significant change in behaviour from person she met in 2002”.
In June 2008 he staged protests in Martin Place against the breakfast program Sunrise, he was upset with their stories about Muhamed Haneef, who was wrongly accused of aiding terrorists.
Updated
Jeremy Gormly says because the inquest is “establishing the shape of a person’s mind” there is some benefit in looking at letters he wrote. He wrote to Queen Elizabeth II in “surprisingly respectful terms” complaining about media corruption and non-Muslim terrorism. He got a reply but it was not signed and he wrote a letter of complaint to Buckingham Palace, which responded by sending a signed letter.
Jeremy Gormly, SC, is back on the stand, addressing the inquest.
He says Man Haron Monis legally changed his name from Michael Hayson Mavros in 2006. The next year he created the website SheikHaron.com and almost immediately began posting inflammatory messages. Haron was the brother of Moses.
The heading of the website said: “if you want to kill people while not use the tools of your own” and Monis called himself “Mufti Sheikh Haron”. He did not hide that he was the author of the website.
Man Monis' Australian Citizenship & passport. #siegeinquest pic.twitter.com/eTBF5PGQqw
— 7 News Sydney (@7NewsSydney) May 25, 2015
Updated
There is no evidence after 2000 of Man Haron Monis holding any full-time work but he established a “so called clairvoyant or spiritual healing business” which advertised in local ethnic minority newspapers. He registered several businesses through which he did the work. The first is “Spiritual Power”, registered in 2001. One of the advertisements asked:
Do you want to know about future of love and career?
Is time running out on you and are you still single?
Do you need to check whether he/she is your right partner for marriage?
Do you want to clean the evil spririt and improve your spiritual life?
Records show Monis had a clientele of 500 from 2002 to 2007 and in one year declared he grossed $120,000 on his tax return.
His charges of sexual assault stem from this business. He told women that he would need them undressed, sometimes partially, but usually completely, to undergo the treatment.
The alleged sexual assaults ranged from touching to full penetration. When this was met with objection from his female clients he used various level of arguments
He would say sexual energy was needed to overcome problem of curses or black magic. He would also point to the harm they would suffer if they did not complete treatment.
According to Callan if Monis was criminally tried, it is more likely than not he would have been convicted and sentenced to lengthy period in custody. He had not been tried when he died, but the likelihood the offences would be proved seems objectively high. Numerous women who don’t know each other and from different ethnic background described similar assaults.
There is nothing to verify the claims by that his wife and daughters were being held in Iran. His emails show he maintained contact at least with his daughters in later years.
Updated
Sophie Callan says in 2000 Monis was working at a carpet store when he claims he was demoted to “gatekeeper”. Monis claimed persecution on the basis of his religion and took the case to the fair work ombudsman after he was sacked.
Monis was awarded $14,000 but it is not clear if he received the money.
Monis also registered a charity around the same time.
He appears to have returned to Sydney in 2001 but in Perth the story of the public life of Monis began. He wrote a series of letters to public figures and adopted the method again over the next few years. In Perth he wrote to Kofi Annan, the editor of the New York Times, Bill Clinton then president of America.
It seems he was complaining that his family was not joining him in Australia.
After receiving a response from the UN saying the issue did not fall within its jurisdiction, Monis chained himself to a pole outside of Perth parliament protesting the Iranian government for not letting him see his daughters. Monis was taken to hospital within a few hours, believed to have suffered heat stroke.
Monis also chained himself to the fence outside of NSW parliament in 2001. An ABC journalist interviewed him for the radio program Religion Report. He was described in the report as a “Muslim cleric” who fled Iran after being critical of the regime, and his wife and daughters were under house arrest.
Junior counsel assisting Sophie Callan is now talking about the early years Monis spent in Australia. She says it is not the job of the inquest to make a judgement on whether Monis should or should not have been granted asylum.
There is no tenable causal link between allowing Mr Monis into Australia from Iran in 1996 and his actions in the Lindt cafe in December 2014.
Upon Monis’ arrival in 1996 he lived in Auburn in Sydney and lived with several people, one of who we will hear from in the next fortnight. Monis was going by the name Michael Hayson Mavros when he was granted citizenship in 2004.
Monis had various jobs and in 1997 was issued with a security licence and began firearms training. He at first failed revolver accreditation training but passed on his second attempt, and also passed the exam for semi-automatic rifle training.
Monis was security officer at a shopping village for about two years. We will hear from the manager of that village tomorrow.
Gormly says the basis for Monis’s claims must be treated with a degree of scepticism.
There is a second hand account that Mr Monis was involved with a travel agency with political connections … perhaps a political fund-raising or fund clearing body.
One unverified version of events has Monis defrauding the travel agency of $200,000US and used it to flee to Australia.
Early in Monis’s marriage he started to display “difficult and moody behaviour”. His failure to move forward in Iranian society suggests other problems. There is a hearsay suggestion that Monis was involved in some kind of sexual misconduct in Iran.
Updated
Gormly says it is still not clear why Man Haron Monis left Iran though he represents it as dissident or fraud. Gormly says he expects that the true position may become clearer at the conclusion of the evidence.
The coronial inquest has resumed after a brief adjournment because of a “technical hitch”.
Jeremy Gormly, SC, says Monis self published a book of poetry translated as “Inside, Outside” after arriving in Australia. He pointed to it as evidence of his discontent with Iran and said it compromised his safety in Iran in his application for asylum in Australia. He said the poetry demonstrated dissent with Iranian.
One of the poems has been translated from Farsi to English and is being shown to the inquest. I have tried to take down as much of it as I could:
They do forbidden things and say it as lawful, the road you are seeing as the main is a side road...
they have replaced justice with injustice and torture
in this place only look for people with no self-awareness,
yes means no and no means yes in this place, truth is faraway from truth ,you said the word and here it is.
even if you are a parrot take the colour of a crow.
The poems are reviewed as “mixed quality to bad” and described as obscure.
My colleague Michael Safi has some more detail on the persecution claims made by Man Haron Monis when he applied for asylum in Australia:
Monis’ claim for a refugee visa rested on two claims of persecution: the first for a book of subversive poetry, the second that he had converted to the Ahmadi sect of Islam, a minority movement that believes the Islamic prophet appeared in India in 1853. It is considered heretical by orthodox.
Monis said his contact with Ahmadis, including a conversion in London, brought him under the scrutiny of the Iranian secret police, VAVAK.
He admitted to [the Iranian secret police] VAVAK some academic work for the Ahmadi but denied any conversion to the Ahmadi faith,” Gormly said.
Man Haron Monis alleged two basis of persecution when he applied for asylum in Australia in 1996 and went into great detail about them in an interview with the immigration department in 1997.
Monis claimed he converted from Shia to Ahmadi while in Iran and the conversion was preceded by correspondence with head of the sect in London. He handed the supposed letter to the department of immigration in 1997.
Monis says he was eventually summoned by the Iranian ministry of intelligence and security to account for his Ahmadi acquaintance.
This is a fiction, but what is possibly true is that he approached agencies, according to Gormly.
It is worth mining his story and examining it, not for truth or likelihood, but for way he used it over his years in Australia.
Monis claimed he was asked to spy and over time became an appraised spy. Monis claims he became disenchanted and desperately unhappy and feared persecution if he didn’t comply. He began to write anti-government poetry.
There is problem with the audio and we have briefly adjourned while it is fixed.
Monis was a “tall man” according to Gormly, he was quite large but does not seem to have played sport or taken part in the military. There is no evidence he experienced acts of violence as a young person in Iran.
Monis and his wife in Iran lived in “relative luxury” in Iran when he married. It was of a higher standard than the house he grew up in.
The inquest is shown a video of Monis receiving a Hujjat al-Islam, it is an honorific title meaning “authority on Islam” or “proof of Islam”. It is a title awarded to scholar in the Shia faith. His rank is described as of a priestly level.
In the video he is called to walk to a senior person and has something placed on his head then kisses the man on each cheek. He look to be in his late 20s or early 30s.
The inquest hears there is not much more evidence of how Monis spent his time in the early 90s.
Updated
Monis' high school certificate from Iran. He scored 16/20 academically and 20/20 for discipline. #sydneysiege pic.twitter.com/LR4VxvcVwI
— Dan Box (@DanBox10) May 25, 2015
Gormly says the inquest has worked at “trying to understand the man who walked into the Lindt cafe that morning”.
He was a complex and secretive man about his own life, even though he could be very public about his views. It took some effort to find and verify information about him but once it commenced a large amount of info emerged.
Gormly says the inquest is likely to gain the most assitance from oral evidence.
He says Monis was born in Borujerd in Iran under a different name, Mohammed Manteghi, and he has taken on many names in Australia. This would usually slow investigation but Monis had a “curious feature of administrative compliance”.
He kept records dating back many years including correspondence, he lodged tax returns, he registered name changes, he notified authorities when he changed his address. At one stage he filled out a police form notifying a protest.
The contrast between compliance and illegality is a thread that runs through most of his time in Australia.
Monis spoke classical Arabic and Farsi. He spoke English fairly well from his early days in Australia. His English was “very good” by the time he reached his politically active phase. He was brought up Shi’ite, he appears to have had a conventional education, undertaken in various schools in Tehran.
Updated
Jeremy Gormly SC is talking about why we need a coronial inquest into the deaths of Katrina Dawson, Tori Johnson and Man Haron Monis:
The affects on families and friends of violent suspicious death is corrosive and disturbing. It is always vital for a civilised society to investigate suspicious deaths...the result is these type of deaths can be avoided.
Counsel assisting Jeremy Gormly SC says some counter terrorism issues need to be taken into account during the inquest and some closed hearings are likely to be necessary. He also says some of the coroner’s findings may not be made public.
We are seeking good answers not just quick ones.
Updated
Gormly is outlining the timetable for the inquest. He says the final public segment will not be ready for considerable time. The inquest still has to talk to police from the United Kingdom and Queensland on siege and terrorism management.
He says people who were taken hostage during the siege will not give evidence until after August.
Counsel assisting the inquest, Jeremy Gormly, SC, is now doing the opening address. He says witnesses over the next two weeks will be people who knew Man Haron Monis.
They include people who worked with him, people involved in academic courses he undertook and people in government departments to which he caused trouble.
We will hear details of Monis’s early life and his charges over sending abusive letters to families of Australia soldiers.
There will also be people who knew Monis on a social or friendship level but Gormly says there are only a few witnesses who fall into that category because he appears to have led a relatively isolated existence.
2011 was when Monis was last treated for mental health issue.
His mental health problems appear to be modest, mental illness may not provide full answers about his motivations for the siege.”
Coroner Michael Barnes has also addressed concerns about whether police should be involved in an investigation of the conduct of their colleagues. He says there is no alternative to this arrangement, “and no basis for concern”.
They are part of a civilian led interdisciplinary team.
Coroner Michael Barnes is now addressing the room. He says much evidence has been gathered that has given the inquest a clearer idea of whether there were opportunities to prevent the deaths of Katrina Dawson, Tori Johnson and Man Haron Monis.
Barnes said while many people have moved on with their lives since December 16, for the loved ones of Dawson and Johnson, their deaths remain a dominant feature of every day and will continue to do so.
He asks, is there evidence that should have caused Monis to be deported? Once the siege started could it have been curtailed before its conclusion?
Some people involved in the siege believe the inquest has been brought on too quickly while their feelings are too raw, Barnes reveals.
I accept their views but the inquest can not be delayed. Speed is of the essence. It would be unforgivable if we delayed and another similar incident were to occur before we learnt the lessons of the last.
A central question of the inquest:
Was Monis a so-called lone wolf prosecuting an Isis style terror attack, or a deranged individual pursuing a person private grievance in a public manner
Barnes says some of the people involved in the siege object to being referred to as “the hostages” and do not want to be defined for the rest of their lives by one man’s crime. He says the inquest will do its best to respect that and so will we on the blog, though given the circumstances it may difficult at times.
Good morning, you join us this Monday as the coronial inquest into the deaths of the Sydney siege hostages Tori Johnson and Katrina Dawson and the man who took them hostage, Man Haron Monis, is about to resume. This inquest has been a huge undertaking – there are more than 100 witnesses and it will run in blocks into next year. This is the first block and will last two weeks. We have already had a directions hearing which you can read here.
The state coroner Michael Barnes is overseeing the inquest and counsel assisting Jeremy Gormly SC and junior counsel assisting Sophie Callan will deliver the opening address today. It is expected to be quite lengthy, about six hours, and could perhaps take up the entire day.
The inquest has been unable to provide a complete witness list at this stage but we do know the first witness will be the officer in charge of the investigation, Detective Inspector Angelo Memmolo. Whether we will see him on the stand at all today is not known yet.
There is still quite a lot we do not know about the Sydney siege and I have had a look at that at length here. Some of the 18 hostages have spoken about their experience inside the cafe and you can read their stories here.
Updated
