The Iranian who laid siege to a restaurant in Sydney, Australia, last December once tried to join an Australian motorcycle gang, but was considered so “weird” it kicked him out.
That story was just one of many painting Man Haron Monis as odd and erratic—but intelligent—that were presented Monday to a government inquest into the siege.
The inquest is formally a coroner’s investigation into the deaths of the three people, including Monis, who were killed in the siege. But it effectively became a much broader inquiry into Monis and what drove him. The inquest heard that Monis suffered “grandiose delusions” and was constantly seeking power over others. It is expected to continue several months and hear more than 100 witnesses.
Police stormed the Lindt Chocolate Cafe in central Sydney in the early hours of December 16 after Monis shot and killed 34-year-old cafe manager Tori Johnson during a 17-hour standoff in which he held 18 people hostage.
The inquest has already heard that another of the hostages taken by Monis, 38-year-old lawyer Katrina Dawson, was killed by a ricochet from at least one police bullet.
Monis, 50 when he was killed by police, claimed to be carrying out an attack as a member of the Islamic State radical group.
However, far from belonging to a global movement, the inquest was told of his multiple failed attempts to cultivate a following, not just within Sydney’s mainstream Muslim community but anywhere he could insert himself.
“His constant goal in life appears to have been achieving significance,” said Sophie Callan, a lawyer assisting the inquiry.
The inquest will continue to examine Monis’ life, as well as looking into why he was on bail at the time of the siege despite facing charges of arranging the murder of his ex-wife, who was found burned to death in a Sydney apartment block.
Between 2001 and 2007 Monis reinvented himself as a new-age guru or clairvoyant, marketing his “spiritual healing” techniques to female clients through advertisements in ethnic newspapers. He was averaging $125,000 a year from that business.
However, he was eventually charged with 43 counts of sexual and indecent assault on women who came to him seeking help.
He had a client base of 500 women, mostly poorly educated immigrants, many of whom believed in black magic, which Monis often used to induce them into having sex with him. Callan said the business “provided him with a predatory opportunity for sexual assault.”
He was facing trial for those sexual assaults when he launched his siege. Callan said the evidence against Monis was substantial and he likely would have faced a long prison term if he hadn’t been killed in the siege. One question is whether he launched his siege because he realized his game was up and he might spend the rest of his life in prison for the sexual assaults and for arranging the murder of his former wife.
In 2012 or 2013, Monis unsuccessfully attempted to join the notorious Rebels Motorcycle Club, Callan said. He was rejected because the biker gang thought that he was too “weird.” Monis dropped his clerical garb and started dressing like a biker.
“Ultimately, he was rejected by the Rebels—and they took his motorbike,” she said.
One member of the biker gang told investigators for the inquest that members thought he was “strange and weird” and “no one in the club really liked him.”
Callan said his efforts to join the gang was part of a pattern of behavior that saw him repeatedly trying to change his appearance and to involve himself with people he considered powerful and important.
Monis, who came to Australia in 1996 and gained citizenship after claiming persecution by the Islamic Republic, claimed his late father had been an ayatollah in Iran, lawyer Jeremy Gormly told the inquest. But Gormly said the investigation found no evidence to support that.
Gormly, the senior lawyer assisting the inquest, said, “Mr. Monis has proved to be a complex and secretive man about his own life.”
He was born in Borujerd in 1964, the youngest of five children whose parents lived on a modest income.
He had a conventional education in Tehran, and appeared to be an intelligent student who behaved well.
By the 1980s, he was married with two children, and working and studying with the support of his father-in-law. But by the 1990s, things seemed to go wrong for Monis, the inquest heard.
He arrived in Australia in 1996 seeking asylum, claiming he had been persecuted by Iranian authorities after working for them as a spy. He presented poetry he had written in Iran as evidence supporting his asylum claim. But the lawyers said his obscure criticism could have been of the West rather than the Islamic Republic. Monis claimed he had trouble with the regime over his poetry, forcing him to flee. But Callan said it was “difficult to reach any sound conclusion as to what caused Mr. Monis to leave Iran.”
Gormly said, “Mr. Monis was prone to grandiose claims,” adding that there might be a “kernel of truth” to some of them.
Originally named Mohammad Monteghi, he took a series of aliases after he arrived in Australia.
Gormly said the gunman appeared to have been a largely isolated man with few friends. He said many of the 100-plus witnesses who will give evidence over the course of the inquest are people who interacted with Monis, but few of them knew him socially. Instead they were former employers, lawyers and psychiatrists.
“Mr. Monis has proved to be a complex and secretive man about his own life, even though he could be very public about his views,” Gormly said, referring to his many efforts to court the media and get coverage for himself in the news.
He sent out press releases, launched a website, and was happy to address the microphones that were thrust his way outside courtrooms and provincial houses of parliament.
In their opening address, the lawyers painted Monis as a man who was both compliant and contrarian when it came to authority. He dutifully registered his many name changes, filed his taxes and applied for police approval ahead of his frequent protests. He even wrote the federal attorney general at one point to ask if it was legal for him to write to an officer of the Islamic State.
But his protests were often dramatic, with Monis chaining himself to buildings and staging a hunger strike.
He obsessively pursued perceived injustices against various authorities, in one instance flying to New Zealand and returning immediately for the sole purpose of proving he was being treated unreasonably by Australian customs officials.
“He could be plausible, courteous and controlled,” Callan said. “But he was also almost entirely consumed in his own self-importance and, when challenged, his self-control would occasionally slip and his reaction was disproportionate.”
The lawyers also described Monis as a narcissist with a flair for the grandiose, his lies, half-truths and impossible-to-verify tales both large and small — from bragging about being an Iranian spy to shaving 12 years off his age upon meeting his future wife. But the lawyers dismissed any suggestions that Monis was severely mentally ill. He had treatment for depression in 2005, a form of schizophrenia in 2010 and other mental health issues in 2011.
“Mr. Monis, as we shall see, unquestionably had at stages in his life some mental health issues, but I say at the outset that any such issues appear to be modest,” Gormly told the inquest. “Mental illness may not provide a full answer to the questions about his motivations for the siege.”
The inquest — a court-like proceeding convened after unusual deaths in Australia — is aimed at determining how the hostages and Monis died, how authorities responded and whether the siege could have been prevented. It is being conducted in segments throughout the year.
Monis spent the early 1990s studying Islam, eventually becoming a mid-ranking cleric. The inquest was shown a video in which Monis was awarded the clerical rank of hojatoleslam.
But he does not appear to have ever led prayers at a mosque. After completing his clerical studies, he registered several import and export businesses in Iran, and worked at a travel agency.
He arrived in Australia in 1996 and applied for a “protection visa,” arguing he was persecuted in Iran. As one basis for his claim, he said he had secretly converted to the minority Ahmadi branch of Islam — something Gormly dubbed “almost certainly a fiction he told to obtain refugee status.”
In Australia, he worked as a Persian carpet salesman and later as a security officer. He underwent firearms training for that job, but never held a gun license. Earlier news reports said he held a gun license, but the inquest was told a thorough check found that no province had ever issued him one.
Furthermore, no legal import record has been found for the French-made Manufrance La Salle 12-gauge, pump-action, sawn-off shotgun used by Monis in the siege.
In the lead-up to the siege, his life was spiraling downward, Gormly said. By 2014, Monis was in debt, had failed to establish a religious following, had lost a custody battle for his children and was facing potential jail time for the sex assault and accessory to murder charges.
“His grandiose self-assessments of the past were seemingly not coming to fruition,” Gormly said. “It’s not difficult to develop a summary of Mr. Monis’s life in Australia that makes him look like a man spiraling downwards….
“His attempt to develop a personal religious following … had failed. Indeed, the Islamic community in Australia did not accept him,” Gormly said.
“He had few friends and no standing with any group or institution. His attempts to join other groups, even the bikies who tolerated him for a short period, failed.”
Gormly said that whether or not Monis expected to survive the events of December 15 and 16 was not known, adding: “Reality for him may not have hit home until many hours into the siege.”