Posts
Police
storm Lindt cafe, Sydney hostage crisis over (FULL VIDEO)
Heavily
armored police units have stormed Lindt Café and brought an end to a
day-long hostage standoff in the heart of Sydney. Gun fire and stun
grenades were heard at the scene, with four civilians and one police
officer reportedly injured.
3
dead, 4 injured after police op in Sydney siege
:
RT,
15
December , 2014
Heavily
armored police units have stormed Lindt Café and brought an end to a
day-long hostage standoff in the heart of Sydney. Police said three
people including gunman were killed, four more injured.
As
a result of the police operation at Sydney’s Lindt Café, the
gunman identified as Iranian-born Sheik Man Haron Monis was killed,
New South Wales (NSW) police said.
Two
hostages, a 34-year-old man and a 38-year-old woman, were pronounced
dead after being taken to hospital, police added.
“Two
women have been taken to hospital with non-life threatening injuries,
while a male police officer suffered a non-life threatening wound to
his face from gunshot pellets and was taken to hospital,” the NSW
police statement continued.
“Another
woman has been taken to hospital with a gunshot wound to her
shoulder. A 35-year-old woman was taken to hospital as a precaution.”
An
exchange of gunfire inside the café prompted police to move in,
police commissioner for the state of NSW, Andrew Scipione, told
reporters.
All
17 hostages were accounted for, said Scipione, adding that no
explosives were found.
"The
exchange was started by three discrete bangs. The first brought about
five people from the building. A space followed between the
subsequent two and then a near-continuous volley rang out. Dozens of
shots," James Robertson, a reporter for the Sydney Morning
Herald, reported at the bottom of Martin Place; about 150 metres from
the scene.
Roberts
said that the hostages fled the scene in two waves. The first group
of five left the building with their hands up after the first gun
shots were fired. Another group of five or more hostages came out
after more shots were fired.
Shortly
after police stormed in, paramedics wearing bulletproof vests were
seen entering Lindt Chocolat Cafe, located on a pedestrian mall in
the central business district of Sydney.
One
woman was seen being carried out with blood running down her leg.
Paramedics have been seen carrying at least 4 stretchers into the
building.
The
dramatic scene follows a 16 hour standoff, after the gunman took over
a dozen people hostage. Monis, who refers to himself as “the
Brother”, is apparently a supporter of the radical militants from
the so-called Islamic State (IS), an Iraq and Syria-based terrorist
organization aiming to create a fundamentalist nation, or a caliphate
in the region.
The
gunman also made three female hostages voice his demands in a video
warning that “the Brother” has accomplices and access to
explosives.
It
appears, however, that Monis, who has a history of sex crimes and
violence, was acting alone.
"This
is a one-off random individual. It's not a concerted terrorism event
or act. It's a damaged goods individual who's done something
outrageous," his former lawyer, Manny Conditsis, told Australian
Broadcasting Corp.
"His
ideology is just so strong and so powerful that it clouds his vision
for common sense and objectiveness," Conditsis added.
Following
police searches earlier in the day, no suspect devices were
discovered in or around Martin Place - often described as the civic
heart of Sydney where the crisis unfolded. Police have brought bomb
sniffing dogs into the cafe to check it for explosives.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.