AFP officer says he thought radicalised teen would behead him

A MELBOURNE cop thought he was going to be beheaded as a radicalised teen attacked him with a knife, an inquest hears.

‘I thought he’d behead me’

A MELBOURNE police officer thought he was going to be beheaded as a radicalised teen attacked him with a knife, an inquest has heard.

Officer B has told an inquest into the death of Numan Haider, 18, he believes another officer, who shot Haider, saved his life.

“I’m certain that when Haider moved around to my head he was going to cut my head off,” Officer B said in his statement to the inquest on Thursday.

The federal police officer, who was part of the Joint Counter Terror Team, said a fatwa against Australian people and officials flashed through his head in the moments he was being attacked by the teen outside the Endeavour Hills police station.

Everything happened quickly and his eye was bleeding heavily with blood running down his face.

He knew Haider was a person of interest to ASIO and had been involved in an incident with a Shahada flag at the Dandenong Plaza the week before.

He and the other officer — known as Officer A for legal reasons — had arranged to meet Haider on the night of September 23, 2014, when the teen lunged at them with a knife.

“I remember thinking at the time Haider moved around my head that he was going to kill me,” Officer B said.

“I just shut down.” Officer B reached for his gun but couldn’t release it, the inquest heard.

Then he heard a gunshot, the first sound he recalled from the attack, he said.

The officer believes Haider died instantly.

“As I got up to my feet I realised I’d been stabbed,” Officer B said.

He sustained two lacerations to his face, two stab wounds to his left shoulder and a stab wound to the centre of his chest.

“I don’t think we could have done anything else than what we did,” Officer B said in his statement to the inquest before Victorian Coroner John Olle.

The inquest continues.