Three people died in a sudden and bloody conclusion to a 17- hour siege at a cafe in the centre of Sydney that saw an Iranian self-styled Islamic cleric hold customers at gunpoint before police stormed the building. The hostage-taker was among those killed.
Police said the decision shortly after 2am local time (3pm Monday, Irish time) to enter the Lindt Chocolat Cafe on Martin Place was taken to save lives.
"They made the call because they believed that, at that time, that if they didn't enter, there would have been many more lives lost," New South Wales police commissioner Andrew Scipione told a press conference.
The commissioner said officers were left with no choice after the apparent escape of five hostages was followed by gunshots.
“Until we were involved in this emergency action, we believe that no one had been injured. That changed. We changed our tactic,” he said.
Police said 17 hostages had been held inside the cafe. Two hostages, a 34-year-old man and a 38-year-old woman, were killed. The gunman, Man Haron Monis (50), was shot dead. Others, including a police officer, suffered non-life-threatening injuries.
Building rushed
Those watching outside saw a small group of hostages sprint from a door, arms aloft and faces fixed in terror, before a series of bangs was heard. Police immediately rushed the building amid a cacophony of blasts, apparently from stun grenades. Soon afterwards paramedics could be seen removing people on stretchers. One was being resuscitated by medics.
Monis was a self-declared Iranian Muslim cleric on bail over a string of violent offences, including being an accessory to the murder of his ex-wife and mother of two children. He had come to public attention in 2007 when he wrote hate-filled letters to the families of Australian soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Those who knew Monis characterised him as an erratic loner, not part of a larger military group.
Damaged goods
“This is a one-off random individual,” his former lawyer, Manny Conditsis, told Australia’s ABC television. “It’s not a concerted terrorism event or act. It’s a damaged-goods individual who’s done something outrageous.”
Iran’s Fars news agency said Australia denied an attempt to extradite him back to the Islamic Republic, where he went by the name of Mohammad Hassan Manteghi Bourjerdi and had been indicted for fraud. Iran had frequently raised Monis’s “mental condition” with Australian authorities, the foreign ministry also reported.
Martin Place is a busy pedestrianised street at the heart of power for Sydney’s financial, legal, political and media institutions. It is called after Sir James Martin, a former premier and chief justice of New South Wales, who was born in Midleton, Co Cork, in 1820.
New South Wales state premier Mike Baird said: "We have lost some of our own in an attack we never thought we would see here in our city. In the past 24 hours, this city has been shaken. Today we must come together as never before."
Additional reporting from the Guardian and Bloomberg
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