Man Monis’s partner so ‘besotted’ by him she conducted ‘ritualistic’ murder of woman, court hears

MAN Haron Monis crashed his car outside a police station to create an alibi for his girlfriend as she murdered a woman, a court has heard.

Amirah Droudis, the widow of Lindt Cafe gunman Man Haron Monis has plead not guilty to the murder of a woman.

LINDT siege killer Man Haron Monis deliberately crashed his car outside a police station to create an alibi on the afternoon his girlfriend murdered a woman “at his bidding”, a court has been told.

Amirah Droudis, 37, has pleaded not guilty to murdering the woman at her Werrington Park apartment on April 21, 2013, a crime Monis was also facing charges over until he was shot dead by police as they stormed the Lindt cafe after the deadly 17-hour siege.

Man Haron Monis was also charged with the murder of the woman.

The state’s senior Crown Prosecutor Mark Tedeschi QC said in an opening to Justice Peter Johnson, who will hear the trial without a jury, that Droudis was one of three wives Monis had married “simultaneously” in religious ceremonies.

The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was stabbed 18 times and then her body was set alight.

Droudis’s hearing was told yesterday a neighbour in the apartment block witnessed the incident and told police he saw a woman dressed in an Islamic niqab carry out the killing.

At the same time the court heard Monis had “veered his car” into a parked police vehicle at Penrith police station in at attempt to forge an “unassailable alibi”.

“Mr Monis was the mastermind of the murder,” Mr Tedeschi said.

Droudis arrives at the Downing Centre court. Picture: Britta Campion

The court heard that, in the lead-up to the 30-year-old woman’s death, Monis attempted to join two chapters of the Rebels bikie gang to find someone to carry out the murder. However, his approach was so “amateurish” and “outlandish” they thought he was a “police plant”.

It will be alleged Monis found a willing participant for the killing in Droudis, at that stage his girlfriend of seven years and a woman “so totally dominated by him that she was prepared to do his bidding in whatever way he wished”.

“She was enthralled by him ... adopting his extremist views on a range of topics,” Mr Tedeschi said.

The court heard the defence would not be contesting Monis’s involvement in the crime but were strongly denying Droudis had played a part in the “brutal and ritualistic” killing.

“The use of fire was a ritualistic element of this murder and it was perpetrated by someone with great hatred for the deceased,” Mr Tedeschi said.

“The Crown will call and tender evidence in relation to Mr Monis as part of his bizarre religious and religiopolitical beliefs.

“(This included) that God sometimes uses human intermediaries to carry out his wishes.

“Needless to say he saw himself as one of those intermediaries.

“He saw fire as being one form of God exacting revenge for wrongdoing. There is no coincidence this murder involved the use of fire.”

The pre-trial hearing continues today, with the trial set to formally begin on August 15.