Numan Haider inquest told he attacked officers after passport cancelled
A TEEN shot dead by police 18 months ago had gone from a fun-loving boy who helped his mother in the kitchen to an extremist within just months, his inquest has been told.
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A TEEN shot dead by police 18 months ago had gone from a fun-loving boy who helped his mother in the kitchen to an extremist within just months, his inquest has been told.
Numan Haider’s family told the Coroners Court the 18-year-old had been an obedient boy from an educated and moderate migrant family.
But older friends, the Al- Furqan mosque, and propaganda from terrorists overseas had radicalised him.
Counsel assisting the coroner, Rachel Ellyard, said ASIO officers had warned Haider about associating with a local boy.
She said Haider had also visited an extremist mosque in Bankstown, Sydney, two weeks before his death.
Haider was shot dead on September 23, 2014, after attacking two counter-terrorist police officers with a knife outside the Endeavour Hills police station.
The court heard one officer was stabbed in the arm after asking to search Haider’s pockets, the other in the eye as he searched the teen’s car.
The court heard that Haider had been upset his application for a passport had been rejected the day before, and angry that his room had been searched earlier that day.
Haider’s father told the inquest ASIO officers had visited his son in August.
They warned him to stay away from local man Lijindim Sulejmani, and from the extremist Al-Furqan mosque in Springvale and its leader, Harun Mehicevic, he said.
“They said keep going to the Hallam mosque but not to go to Al-Furqan. They said it had extremists and the imam — leader — was not a good person,” his father said.
Haider’s father said his boy had been fun-loving and intelligent and the family considered themselves an educated and moderate Afghan family.
But in his last months Haider became more religious and made friends his family thought were “slackers.”
His father said the family had never seen any indication he was radicalised, and was inconsolable about his death.
They had been planning to take him to Europe, and then to Afghanistan to find a wife.
But by June, when he applied for a passport, authorities were interested in him and had begun to trace his calls.
The inquest heard that after counter-terrorism raids in Sydney and Brisbane on September 18, Haider went to Dandenong Plaza and unfurled a flag bearing the Islamic declaration of faith in the presence of police officers.
He told them, “I’m not going to blow up the shopping centre today” and then, “You will pay for what happened in Brisbane and Sydney today.”
Haider later told friends: “(They) did not even search me. If I had the knife I would’ve stabbed them.”
Three days before his death the leader of Islamic State issued a fatwa calling for attacks against the Australian government and the public. Next day, Haider bought two knives.
Worried police from the joint counter-terrorism team arranged to meet him.
On September 23, police searched his room. Haider, who was absent, arranged to meet them later.
His brother told coroner John Olle he told Haider not to do anything stupid that night.
The inquest continues.