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(Bloomberg) -- Sydney’s hostage crisis is over after police stormed the cafe that was under siege for about 17 hours, with Sky News television reporting that two people were killed, including the gunman.
Rapid gunshots were heard inside the cafe in the central business district for about 30 seconds, with flashes of gunfire seen, shortly after about six hostages ran out with their hands up just after 2 a.m. Tuesday, television footage showed.
The gunman was identified by Australian media as Man Haron Monis, a 50-year-old Iranian. Monis, a self-styled cleric who was charged last year with being an accessory to murder, had forced the hostages to display a black flag with Arabic lettering in the cafe’s window.
The siege, which began on Monday morning, triggered a lockdown in Sydney’s business district, three months after Australia raised its terrorism alert to the highest level in a decade. Five other people escaped from the building yesterday.
Paramedics converged on the site of the siege after the shootings, and assisted hostages from the cafe, the TV footage showed. The exact number of hostages and casualties remains unknown.
Monis was charged in November 2013 with being an accessory to the murder of his ex-wife, the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper reported. In April, he was charged with the indecent and sexual assault of a woman in western Sydney in 2002. He’s on bail in relation to both cases, it said.
Monis also sent offensive letters to families of Australian solders killed in Afghanistan, the newspaper said. The current hostage crisis followed an unsuccessful attempt to have the charges related to the letters, for which he was sentenced to 300 hours of community service and placed on a two-year good-behavior bond, overturned, the Herald reported. |
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发表于 2014-12-15 04:58
