Lindt siege inquiry: Army advisers backed police plan to assault cafe as police dithered
MILITARY advisers gave their backing to a police plan to force their way into the Lindt Cafe and take the gunman Man Monis by surprise, it has been revealed.
NSW
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MILITARY advisers gave their backing to a police plan to force their way into the Lindt Cafe and take the gunman Man Monis by surprise, it has been revealed.
The Tactical Operations Unit sergeant who drew up the “direct action plan” has told the inquest into the deadly 2014 siege the feedback he got from the Australian Defence Force liaison officers at the siege was that it was “a viable plan and it would work”.
He heard nothing back from his own commanders who the inquest had heard never approved the plan as they continued with their strategy of “contain and negotiate” for 17 hours until Monis shot dead cafe manager Tori Johnson at 2.13am on December 16.
The sergeant said he believed the direct action plan, under which police entered the cafe at a time of their own choosing, would have given the police their “best chance of success.” It was drawn up after he had done a detailed reconnaissance of the area.
But his bosses never even came back to him to ask him to revise it if they didn’t like the plan.
Instead, Mr Johnson’s murder triggered the police emergency action plan to storm the cafe .
The sergeant, codenamed Delta Alpha, is the first of the officers who led the assault on the cafe to give evidence.
He was the leader of Charlie Team, who were waiting inside the fire escape off the Martin Place foyer of the cafe for the word to go.
Delta Alpha said that after the six hostages escaped at 2.03am and Monis fired his first shot, he told his team: “Get ready boys, I think we might go soon.”
Charlie team was to storm the cafe at the same time as Alpha team, who fired their way in through the glass doors on the opposite corner of Martin Place and Phillip Street.
Delta Alpha has told how the cafe was pitch black after the light of the foyer and he could not tell if the gunman was a metre away from him. The officers all thought Monis had the bomb he had threatened to detonate.
The first thing the sergeant saw was what he thought was a black pillar. Then he realised it was one of the hostages, who has been identified as Louisa Hope.
He said she was looking in their direction and very close to Monis.
He indicated with his left hand and said to her: ‘Get down, get down, get down.”
“She didn’t move, she had her hands up,” he said.
He said he dropped to one knee to see around her and to get out of the way of any crossfire from his colleagues but before he needed to shoot, he saw from the torch on his M4 assault rifle that Monis was dead.
“What made you think he was deceased?” counsel assisting the inquest, Sophie Callan, asked.
“A large portion of the left side of his head was missing,” the sergeant said.
He got on the radio and called: “:Cease fire, cease fire, cease fire.”
The inquest has heard that Monis was shot dead by one or both of the two officers who were first through the door with Alpha team.
Barrister Katrina Dawson died after being hit by seven fragments of police bullets.
The sergeant continues to give his evidence at the inquest.
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