Australia’s prime minister Tony Abbott stated that the gunman who took hostages in a Sydney cafe was “a deeply disturbed individual’ known to the police but he was not on a terror watch list.
Today, PM Abbott said that Man Haron Monis, who died in a police raid along with two hostages, “certainly had been well known to the Australian Federal Police … but I don’t believe that he was on a terror watch list at this time.”
Abbott spoke after flower tribute at a makeshift memorial in Sydney for the victims of a central city cafe siege. He put a bouquet of white flowers at the memorial in Martin Place while his wife Margie laid a bouquet of red flowers.
Abbott scribed a message and waved to the crowd as he laid a bouquet of white flowers at the memorial in Martin Place, the plaza in central Sydney where the drama took place. His wife, Margie, laid another bouquet of red flowers.
From early Tuesday, a steady stream of tearful people placed bouquets at the memorial outside of the Lindt Chocolat Cafe.
As the standoff that started at 9:45 a.m. stretched through the day into nightfall with no apparent solution in sight, police stormed the cafe around 2 a.m.
The gunman was identified as 50-year-old Man Haron Monis, whom Abbott said earlier had “a long history of violent crime, infatuation with extremism and mental instability.”
Australian Muslim groups condemned the hostage-taking in a joint statement and said the inscription of the Islamic flag was a “testimony of faith that has been misappropriated by misguided individuals.”
