Sydney siege Hostages Lindt cafe ends tragically : real news inside
The crisis in Sydney has finally ended as all the hostages were rescued by police at the Lidnt Chocolate Cafe in Martin Place. The gunman, however, has not yet been captured. After 15 hours of siege, police stormed into the cafe in the evening.
Earlier, the police identified the gunman as an Iranian refugee with criminal past.
“An Iranian refugee charged with sexual assault and known for sending hate letters to the families of Australian soldiers killed overseas is the armed man holding an unknown number of hostages in a Sydney cafe,” a police source said on Tuesday.
Man Haron Monis, an Iranian refugee and self-styled sheikh, remained holed up in the cafe some 15 hours after the siege began.
“There’s no operational reason for that name to be held back by us now,” said the police source, who declined to be identified.
Several people, including an Indian techie, were taken hostage by the gunman at a popular cafe in Sydney and forced to display an Islamic flag, triggering a security alert in Australia and leading to evacuation of key buildings, including the Indian Consulate here.
The incident happened at the Lindt Chocolate Cafe in Martin Place, the heart of Sydney’s business district.
New South Wales Police Commisioner Andrew Scipione has confirmed that no one has been injured in the terror attack at the Lindt Chocolate Cafe. “We understand no one has been injured, and if that’s true, for that we’re grateful,” Scipione said.
The captor and two hostages died during the confrontation and four other people were wounded, the New South Wales Police saidTuesday morning.
The captor and two hostages died during the confrontation and four other people were wounded, the New South Wales Police saidTuesday morning.
Live television images of the scene showed intense flashes of gunfire and loud concussions from stun grenades as police officers raced into the building at about 2:10 a.m. local time with weapons drawn, followed later by medics with stretchers.
Andrew Scipione, the New South Wales police commissioner, said the police moved quickly to enter the cafe after gunshots were heard inside. “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,” he said. Before the gunshots were heard, he said, the police believed that no one in the cafe had been injured.
Just before the police entered the building, at least six hostages were seen running from the cafe. The police said later that there had been 17 hostages in all.
The police statement reporting the deaths identified the hostage taker as “a 50-year-old man” but did not give his name. Mr. Scipione referred to the man as a “lone gunman” in his remarks at a news conference on Tuesday.
Earlier, the police confirmed reports that the hostage-taker was Man Haron Monis, an Iranian-born man around 50 with a criminal record who called himself Sheikh Haron.
The hostages who died were a 34-year-old man and a 38-year-old woman, the police said. One of the injured people was a police officer, who was treated for an injury to the face and was in good condition, the police said.
Mr. Monis’s former lawyer, Manny Conditsis, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in a televised interview before the siege ended that he believed Mr. Monis was acting alone. “His ideology is just so strong and so powerful that it clouds his vision for common sense and objectiveness,” Mr. Conditsis said, calling his former client “a damaged-goods individual who has done something outrageous.”
Even so, it remained unclear whether Mr. Monis had any accomplices.
Sydney Police Confirm Gunman Is Dead
The armed man took control of the Lindt Chocolate Cafe on Martin Place in central Sydney around 9:45 a.m. Monday, trapping employees and customers inside. He had a black flag with white Arabic script, similar to those used by Islamic militants on other continents, which was later displayed in a cafe window.
During the day Monday, five people fled the cafe, including two employees, but it was not clear whether the assailant had allowed them to leave or they had escaped.
Auto and rail traffic was halted and nearby buildings like the New South Wales Parliament and the Reserve Bank were evacuated or locked down, and helicopters circled overhead. Police officials said they made contact with the hostage-taker and tried to negotiate an end to the siege.
Mr. Monis was known to the police. According to The Sydney Morning Herald, he was free on bail in two separate criminal cases. He was charged in November 2013 with being an accessory before and after the fact in the murder of his ex-wife, Noleen Hayson Pal, and in April 2014, he was charged with the indecent and sexual assault of a woman in western Sydney in 2002. Forty more counts of indecent or sexual assault relating to six other women were later added in that case.
Mr. Monis pleaded guilty in 2013 to 12 charges related to the sending of poison-pen letters to the families of Australian servicemen who were killed overseas, local media reports said. He was reportedly sentenced to probation and community service.
Hostages Held in Sydney Cafe
Lindt Chocolate Café,
location of hostage taking
SYDNEY
The police have said that Mr. Monis presented himself as a spiritual healer and conducted business for a time on Station Street in Wentworthville, a western suburb of Sydney.
A website apparently associated with Mr. Monis included condemnation of the United States and Australia for their military actions against Islamic militants in Iraq and Afghanistan. News reports said the site also contained a posting saying Mr. Monis had recently converted from Shia to Sunni Islam, and SITE, an organization that monitors Islamic extremist groups, said he posted a pledge of allegiance to the “Caliph of the Muslims.” The posting appeared to refer to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and the Islamic State militant group, SITE said, though the posting did not mention them by name.
Mr. Monis apparently emigrated to Australia from Iran around 1996, and was previously known as Manteghi Boroujerdi or Mohammad Hassan Manteghi. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation said he was granted political asylum. In a broadcast interview in 2001, he claimed to have worked for the Iranian intelligence ministry and to have fled the country in fear for his life, leaving behind a wife and family.
A Muslim community leader in Sydney, Dr. Jamal Rifi, said in a televised interview that “everything he stands for is wrong.”
“It has nothing to do with Islam as a religion whatsoever, and we have all seen that by his previous action and his current actions,” Dr. Rifi said of Mr. Monis.
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