Sydney siege: review into how hostage taker obtained gun
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Version 0 of 1. A government review will investigate how the man at the centre of the Sydney siege had been able to obtain a gun, how he was able to stay in Australia and how he fell off a watchlist kept by Asio, the intelligence agency responsible for national security. Tony Abbott, the prime minister, said the joint federal and state government review would also examine Man Haron Monis’ history in Australia – including his successful applications for asylum, permanent residency and citizenship – as well as the handling of the siege. “Plainly there are questions to be asked when someone with such a history of infatuation with extremism, violent crime and mental instability should be in possession of a gun licence,” Abbott said on Wednesday. It is not clear whether or not Monis actually did have a gun licence. New South Wales police said in a statement: “The New South Wales police force has conducted checks with the New South Wales firearms registry and can confirm there is no record of the 50-year-old man having held a firearms licence.” The only other state in which Monis is known to have lived is Western Australia, where he resided for six months. Western Australian police have been contacted for comment. During a police interview in 2011 Monis said he had previously had access to firearms, but the licence had expired. “Yes ... when I was a security officer in Australia. I had a licence, then I got another licence of firearms,” Monis said, according to an ABC report. Guardian Australia has confirmed that Monis did hold a security licence in New South Wales between 1999 and 2000. But Monis still would have needed to apply separately for a firearm licence to use a weapon and would have needed to show he had a genuine reason to hold the licence. Under the New South Wales Firearm Act the police commissioner can suspend the licence of a firearm licensee in circumstances where they believe there is sufficient grounds for a suspension. The suspension is not mandatory for many offences where a charge has been brought but a conviction has not yet occurred. For certain domestic and personal violence offences, the commissioner must suspend a firearm licence, or when an interim apprehended violence order is imposed. These offences include ones where a personal violence offence is committed against someone who the person “has or has had a domestic relationship”. Abbott and the New South Wales premier, Mike Baird, launched an urgent review into the lessons state and federal agencies could learn from the lengthy Martin Place siege, which ended with the death of two hostages and Monis on Tuesday morning. The review, to be completed by the end of January, will be headed by the secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and the secretary of the New South Wales Department of Premier and Cabinet. Abbott said he had “great confidence in our police and security agencies” but wanted “answers to some obvious questions that have been raised in the wake of this terrorist incident”. “We do need to reflect on what’s happened and to ponder what might have been done better,” he said. “We do need to know why the perpetrator of this horrible outrage got permanent residency. “We do need to know how he could’ve been on welfare for so many years,” he said, adding that Monis appeared to have been “having a lend of us”. “We do need to know what this individual was doing with a gun licence. We particularly need to know how someone with such a long record of violence, such a long record of mental instability was out on bail after his involvement in a particularly horrific crime. And we do need to know why he seems to have fallen off our security agencies’ watchlist back in about 2009.” Asked whether Australia’s gun laws were adequate, Abbott said: “We have very tough gun laws and I guess we can be pleased that he didn’t have a more potent weapon at his disposal, but why did he have a gun licence in the first place? That’s the relevant question here.” And the review of Monis’s refugee and citizenship applications could have broader ramifications. “It is very important we carefully consider the security status of people coming to us from different backgrounds,” Abbott said. He also revealed his own response when Monis demanded to speak to him during Monday’s siege. “I said to my office I would do whatever the police thought best,” he said. The advice had been not to speak to the hostage taker. According to the terms of reference, the review asks for the examination of “information held by commonwealth and New South Wales agencies about Man Haron Monis for the period prior to and following his arrival in Australia up until the siege including how any information relevant to public safety was shared between, and used by, agencies”. Abbott and Baird have also asked the reviewers to check whether powers such as control orders could have been used in relation to Monis’s activities of security concern. The terms of reference also include any lessons learned by the New South Wales and Australian federal police about the handling of the siege, including coordination between agencies and effectiveness of public communication. Abbott promised the Australian people “I will not rest until I am confident you are as safe as you can be.” He also revealed he had spoken to US president Barack Obama after the siege, with the US promising to assist the Australian investigation. There will be parallel investigations into the incident by the New South Wales state coroner, the state’s police and the Australian federal police. |