dpa
SYDNEY — Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull asked Tuesday how a known criminal “with a long record of violence” was out on parole, a day after the man killed one person and injured three police officers in what police termed a terrorist attack.
The incident took place Monday evening at an apartment in the Melbourne suburb of Brighton. The hostage-taker - identified by authorities as Yacub Khayre, a 29-year-old Australian born in Somalia - was killed by the police in a shootout.
Khayre shot dead a man who was working at the apartment complex and held a woman hostage.
“The terrorist attack by a known criminal, who was only recently released on parole, is a shocking, cowardly crime,” Turnbull said.
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Police confirmed the gunman had been of some interest for security agencies. He had faced court over a plot to attack a Sydney army barracks in 2009, but was acquitted.
Since November, Khayre had been on parole after serving jail time for a violent 2012 home invasion.
“There have been too many cases of people on parole committing violent offences of this kind,” Turnbull said in Canberra, adding he had raised issues with the premier of the state of Victoria, where the incident occurred.
“How was this man on parole? He had ... a very long record of violence. He had been charged with a terrorist offence some years ago and had been acquitted. He was known to have connections, at least in the past, with violent extremism,” Turnbull told reporters.
Dan Andrews, the Victoria premier, said the gunman had been compliant with the terms and conditions of his parole, including drug testing and a curfew.
Police were called Monday after an explosion was reported in the Bay Street apartment complex in Brighton.
They found the male employee dead in the lobby with a gunshot wound, while Khayre was holding hostage a prostitute he had hired through an escort agency.
He forced her to call Channel Seven news in Melbourne during the stand-off with police, then said: “This is for IS (Islamic State). This is for Al Qaeda.”
After police tried to negotiate with Khayre, officers stormed the building and shot the gunman dead.
Three policemen sustained non-life threatening injuries.
Police Commissioner Graham Ashton said earlier Tuesday that the incident was being treated as “a terrorist attack.”
“We believe that this person was there with those sorts of intentions, albeit we don’t know whether it was something planned at this stage,” Ashton said.
The incident is not believed to be part of a wider plot, he said.
Ashton also said police were aware of an alleged claim of responsibility by the Islamic State militant group.
“We are aware of, online, them having claimed responsibility, but then they always tend to jump up and claim responsibility every time something happens,” he said.
The claim will be part of the investigation, police said later in a statement.
Australia is facing “a growing threat from Islamist terrorism,” Turnbull said. Monday’s incident “underlines the need for us to be constantly vigilant, never to be deterred, always defiant, in the face of Islamist terrorism,” he said.
“What is clear here is that we face a growing threat from Islamist terrorism in Australia in our region and around the world,” he said. “We will continue to defy it and we will continue to defeat it.”
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©2017 Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH (Hamburg, Germany)