Bourke St killer Hassan Khalif Shire Ali’s terror risk had been lowered by police

Hassan Khalif Shire Ali’s terror risk was lowered in the months before he killed Sisto Malaspina.

The terror risk posed by Bourke St killer Hassan Khalif Shire Ali was lowered by police analysts before his deadly attack because he was a cannabis smoker, an inquest has heard.

Shire Ali fatally stabbed Melbourne identity Sisto Malaspina in an attack at Bourke St on November 9, 2018.

An officer with Victoria Police’s Security Intelligence Unit and known only as SIU Officer 23, said it wasn’t thought Shire Ali was displaying characteristics in line with an “extremist Islamic lifestyle”, partly due to his cannabis use.

“The use of cannabis is not consistent with extremist Islamic ideology,” he told the Victorian Coroners Court on Tuesday.

The Bourke St attack stunned Australia in November 2018.

The two areas of Shire Ali’s file domestic spy agency ASIO believed made him a risk to Australia’s national security were he had tried to fly to Syria to join ISIS in 2015, and his brother, Ali Khalif Shire Ali, who was also being investigated by security services.

But Officer 23 said the areas ASIO was troubled by were considered “over-estimated” and “historic” by analysts who reviewed Shire Ali’s file in mid-2018.

Officer 23 said the analysts said Shire Ali’s cannabis use and his criminal activity were more relevant and Shire Ali was classified “towards the bottom end of the scale” of priorities for investigators.

Victim Sisto Malaspina.

Despite this, he believed it necessary to refer Shire Ali to a deradicalisation program - but this request was rejected.

Officer 23 was unaware of any follow up by police after the case was not accepted into the deradicalisation program.

An inquest into the deaths of Sisto Malaspina and his killer Shire Ali is examining issues leading up to the attack in Bourke St, where Shire Ali drove a car filled with gas bottles onto the busy street before launching a stabbing attack.

Mr Malaspina, 74, was killed and two others seriously injured before police shot and killed Shire Ali.

His brother was in prison at the time - he was jailed over a terrorist plot to shoot Victorians celebrating New Year's Eve at Federation Square the previous year.

The inquest continues.

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