Sydney Hostage Siege Unfolding

[Anthony Thorne]

"Who Was Man Haron Monis"

[URL="http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/jun/05/who-was-man-haron-monis-plenty-of-intrigue-but-no-clear-answers-from-the-sydney-siege-inquest"]http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/jun/05/who-was-man-haron-monis-plenty-of-intrigue-but-no-clear-answers-from-the-sydney-siege-inquest
[/URL]
The Guardian is reporting on the inquest into the Sydney siege, with additional commentary from Senior Counsel Jeremy Gormly. Gormley's area of expertise is for Commissions of Inquiry', including commissions investigating government corruption. "Jeremy Gormly has appeared in numerous Inquiries including the Seaview-CAA Royal Commission, Gretley Coal Mine Collapse Inquiry, Thredbo Landslide, Collapse of the NSW Grains Board, Stephens Police shooting, Andrew Mallard murder conviction (Western Australia), Tripodi; alleged assault at NSW Parliament (ICAC) and Inquiry into Corruption in NSW Railways, Inquest into Police road chase and associate procedures, the McGurk Tape Inquiry (ICAC) and other inquiries."

http://www.denmanchambers.com.au/barrist...-gormly-sc

The article tells us a few things.

Monis maintained multiple identities.

Monis went by more than 30 names. He would change phone numbers every two or three weeks, fearing government tracking. Some associates they were never called "friends" who testified recalled he was Egyptian. He was Romanian, others swore. In the same week he would get around as an austere cleric and a playboy who drank and drove fast cars. For a few months in 2013 he was biker too, until the Rebels declared he was "weird" and took his motorcycle. Monis has posthumously led the court through a hall of mirrors.

Monis kept a detailed paper-trail of these identities .

tracking his various incarnations had proved easier than expected. Monis had a "curious feature of administrative compliance", Gormly told the inquest. He kept fastidious records, registering his name and address changes, lodging tax returns. "The contrast between compliance and illegality is a thread that runs through most of his time in Australia," Gormly said.

Monis had income beyond his means.

A woman he dated said he lavished her with gold chains, paid for clothing, lent her one of the three cars he drove. (Each had a custom number plate: MNH001 to 003, the initials for his alias, Michael Heyson.) Iranian men he knew remembered he was often broke. "Two times he asked me to send money to his mother," one associate, Amin Khademi, said.

Gormly has no idea why Monis originally left his home country for Australia in 1996.

Gormly effectively threw his hands in the air. "It's difficult to reach any sound conclusion as to what caused Mr Monis to leave Iran," he said.

Monis felt he was under surveillance by disparate groups, and this surveillance had started when he first left Iran.

"He felt that he was being watched by various groups in Iran and in Australia, and that that had been ongoing for 14 years."

The Guardian is confident that mentions of US intelligence involvement are untrue.

Monis told fabulous lies. His statement to the immigration department in support of his bid for political protection is riddled with them. He claims to have been recruited by US intelligence on a business trip to Romania, liaising with a handler in Cyprus. "There he was given a name, secret code and a telephone number to the CIA," notes of his interview said.

In January 1996, Monis claimed he was flown to Washington, DC. "There he met high-ranking CIA officials, was invited to a number of dinner parties and was taken on sightseeing tours."

The Guardian also wants you to laugh at suggestions that Monis was a double-agent, involved with intelligence forces from his native Iran.

He also claimed to belong to the Ahmadi sect of Islam, which made him a target of Iran's secret police. You would never guess: he became a spy for them too, but told Australia's immigration department he remained a "secret follower" of the Ahmadis.

Adds The Guardian, helpfully -

"This was almost certainly a fiction he told to obtain refugee status," Gormly said.

No need to investigate links to intelligence agencies ISIS was to blame.

His spiralling downwards coincided with the rise, in Iraq and Syria, of the militant group calling itself Islamic State. Its terrorism model is low-tech, democratic. Our imaginations do most of the work. Junior counsel assisting, Sophie Callan, observed that Monis's "constant goal in life appears to have been achieving significance". Isis has made that easy. You don't even need the right flag. Only, as the Australian prime minister Tony Abbott often reminds, "a knife, an iPhone and a victim".