Muslim community warned police about radical preacher linked to gunman
Sydney’s Muslim community has been told to expect counter-terrorism raids following the Bondi Beach attack; Islamic leaders say they have been on alert for 10 years about a hate preacher linked to one of the attackers.
The imprint may reveal that police held a secret meeting on Thursday night where community leaders were briefed on terror raids and authorities expected them to help monitor extremism.
Two senior members of Sydney’s Muslim community have also revealed they told NSW Police about the behavior of radical preacher Wissam Haddad a decade ago. The Bankstown-based cleric has been thrust into the major new spotlight given his association with Bondi hitman Naveed Akram.
They told this outlet on condition of anonymity that police said Haddad wanted to keep the Islamic center open because he was a “good source of intelligence.”
NSW Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon said on Friday he meets regularly with members of Sydney’s Muslim community and they are “deeply disturbed” by the Bondi shooting.
“I have had meetings with members of the Islamic community. They are deeply disturbed by what we saw on Sunday. This is disgusting behavior,” Lanyon said.
“The whole society is suffering. The whole society is affected.”
One attendee at Thursday’s meeting, who spoke anonymously so he could freely describe the meeting, said leaders felt police were “bossing around” and “demonizing the entire community.”
“They were exonerating themselves. They had no remorse for their own failures. Many of us felt humiliated and belittled,” the participant said.
The police allegedly left the meeting without taking any questions or engaging in any conversation with the participants, disrupting many of the assembled leaders.
The source said leaders had given up on the idea that they should monitor their own communities, and in this case they were wrong.
“They threw the grenades and left. And they implied that if we didn’t comply, we would be wrong not to help prevent extremism.”
A police spokesman said he was “unable to confirm the information”.
Muslim leaders said they expressed concern about radical cleric Haddad, also known as Abu Ousayd, who developed a network of followers over many years, some of whom were convicted of terrorism crimes.
“The community has been asking, ‘Why didn’t you arrest this person?’ for more than 10 years. “This destroys most of the young people,” they said.
When asked about the meeting, a NSW Police spokesman said the officer who made the comment had retired. He said police “could not prove the allegations”.
Another senior member of the Muslim community, who spoke on condition of anonymity so they could speak freely without damaging relationships, said NSW Police had a strong relationship with Sydney’s Islamic community when Andrew Scipione was commissioner until 2017, but that relationship had since diminished.
“Lindt Cafe siege, the community played a good part,” the person said. “Even before that. You develop a friendship in peacetime because you need it in a crisis.”
The stronger relationship now was with the Australian Federal Police. “A hundred times better,” said the leader.
The leader said the Muslim community does not spy on itself, but instead works with the police to protect young people from harmful influences.
“This is for our safety, for the protection of our own children,” the leader said. “The police need to maintain channels of dialogue so they can do their job properly and understand what’s going on in the community. I’ve always seen it that way.”
At a press conference held by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Tony Burke and AFP Commissioner Krissy Barrett on Friday, the government announced a national arms buyback plan in response to the Bondi attack.
Barrett commented on the prevalence of antisemitic incidents in Australia, describing the current rate as “incredible”.
“The AFP currently has 21 investigations and 10 people have already been charged. This is incredible. As a country, we must reflect on these statistics,” he said.
Later on Friday, seven men arrested as part of a dramatic counter-terrorism raid were released less than 24 hours after being captured and told reporters they were targeted because they were Muslims.
Heavily armed tactical forces pounced on the men in Liverpool on Thursday afternoon, pulling them from two cars and arresting them on the street and detaining them.
But the men were free to leave after Lanyon said the grounds for continued detention “no longer existed”.
The men hugged each other as they left Liverpool police station. Authorities said they were in Sydney for a holiday and added that they believed what happened was a “misunderstanding”.
Mostafa Rachwani is a Parramatta reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald. He was previously a Community Affairs correspondent for Guardian Australia.Connect via email.
