Police gesture as a hostage (unseen) escapes from an emergency exit during a hostage siege in the central business district of Sydney on December 15, 2014 (photo credit: AFP/William WestT)
Tehran on Monday condemned the deadly hostage-taking in Australia reportedly by an Iranian-born gunman, branding it an act foreign to Islam, state media quoted a government official as saying.
“Undertaking such inhuman acts and provoking fear and panic in the name of merciful Islam is not in any way justifiable,” Iranian foreign ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham said, according to IRNA news agency.
Hostage-taker, Man Haron Monis, an Iranian granted political asylum in Australia in 1996, was killed along with two of his 17 hostages when police stormed a Sydney cafe early Tuesday to end a day-long siege.
“The psychological state of mind of this individual, who took refuge in Australia almost two decades ago, has been discussed several times with Australians officials, who knew his (mental) condition,” said Afkham.
Australian media called 50-year-old Monis a “self-styled sheikh” with a history of violent offenses and who was on bail on charges of being an accessory in his ex-wife’s murder.
Get The Times of Israel's Daily Editionby email and never miss our top stories
Haron Monis, the suspect in a mass-kidnapping of Australian people in a Sydney cafe (screen capture: BBC)
Iranian media identified him a Mohamad Hassan Manteghi, a former Shiite cleric who changed his name when he moved to Australia.
A month ago, according to Iranian media, Monis declared on his official website allegiance to the leader of the jihadist Islamic State group, a Sunni-led organization that considers Shiites as heretics.
In Australia, Monis’s former lawyer, Manny Conditsis, said the public could be assured that the siege was not the work of an organized terrorist group.
Advertisement
“This is a one-off random individual,” he told broadcaster ABC. “It’s not a concerted terrorism event or act. It’s a damaged goods individual who’s done something outrageous.”
We can't do this work alone.
The war with Iran has been draining for all of us in Israel. But when I heard about a high casualty incident – ballistic missile impacts in Arad and Dimona that left nearly 200 people wounded – I drank a cup of coffee, packed a bag, and headed south.
There, I spoke with Shilgit, the head of an after-school program for underprivileged youth. Standing outside her destroyed center, Shilgit said it was a miracle that no children were hurt and spoke about the community coming together in the hours since.
As a Times of Israel reporter, I’m committed to telling stories of resilience like Shilgit’s. But my colleagues and I can't do this alone. If you value work like this,please consider joining our reader support group, The Times of Israel Community. Your financial support is essential to keep real human reporting like this going.
We’re really pleased that you’ve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.
That’s why we started the Times of Israel - to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world.
So now we have a request. Unlike other news outlets, we haven’t put up a paywall. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community.
For as little as $6 a month you can help support our quality journalism while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.
Thank you, David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel
