Melbourne terror: radicalised ‘wife’ refuses to co-operate

The partner of the Bourke Street terrorist has been radicalised and is not co-operating with national security officials.

The Melbourne CBD terrorist’s partner has been radicalised and is not co-operating with investigators trying to reconstruct the dead man’s last movements.

The Australian understands the woman is being closely monitored by the national intelligence community as they attempt to piece ­together the last movements of the dead terrorist Hassan Khalif Shire Ali.

The woman, believed to be aged in her 20s, is considered crucial to investigations but is not helping national security officials determine why Shire Ali stabbed three people and tried to set off a car bomb in the city.

Sources also said investigators would this week try to determine the extent of Shire Ali’s connections to the mosque at the Hume Islamic Youth Centre, which was about 800m from where he, his partner and their young boy lived at Meadow Heights in Melbourne’s north.

The mosque has long been ­associated with radical Islam, with several of its attendees becoming jihadists or congregating there after having been radicalised.

While Shire Ali’s partner has so far not co-operated with security forces, his parents at Werribee in Melbourne’s west are believed to have talked to police.

Police seized some electronic equipment from Shire Ali’s modest flat after they raided it early on Saturday but it is understood little obvious evidence materialised for investigators.

Investigators are having to hack into the computer equipment because Shire Ali was shot dead by police on Friday and the passwords are not known.

A woman dressed in a niqab went to Shire Ali’s flat on Sunday but denied she was the mother of the terrorist’s child.

There was a young child in the back seat of her car.

She entered the yard at the front of the terrorist’s flat, carrying a set of keys.

A woman who lived in the house on the same block as Shire Ali said the terrorist’s partner, believed to be his wife, was normally left in the flat with their toddler son for most of the day while he went working or to prayer. She ­believed that Shire Ali attended the nearby HIYC mosque and that his partner was a nice person.

“We just tried to help the girl, she is a very good girl,’’ Rabia Sanbay told The Australian.

“The wife was always at home. She left on Friday night. She was home but when she heard what happened I think she left with her mother.’’

While several years ago Shire Ali had shown signs of being radicalised, he had recently adopted a much lower profile.

The Australian reported yesterday that the terrorist had become an online friend of Khaled Sharrouf, Australia’s most notorious ­jihadi.

Sharrouf attracted worldwide condemnation when he posted a photo of his young son holding a severed head in July 2014.

Sharrouf, now dead, was considered to be mentally ill and ­deeply radicalised when Shire Ali befriended him online in June 2014.

The picture being painted of Shire Ali is of a lone wolf who ­increasingly kept to himself.

Ms Sanbay said that in the two weeks before Shire Ali was shot dead he had been working as a ­labourer or tradesman, heading off each day to work.

But in the lead up to the terror attack, he had stripped the number plates from his utility, repaired a flat tyre and removed an air compressor from the tray.

Police believe that on the day of the attack, Shire Ali had driven into the city, turning into Exhibition Street in the city from Flinders Street, driving up to Bourke Street and then travelling across Russell Street and setting his vehicle alight.