What we know about the 'spiritual healer' named as the Sydney hostage taker

Almost a year ago to the day when Man Harron Monis took more than two dozen people hostage in a Sydney cafe, he appeared in a Sydney court.

See also: Police storm Sydney cafe to end standoff; gunman reported dead

But Monis, an Iranian who was granted political asylum in 1996, wasn’t there on a terror-related charges; rather, a month earlier, he'd been charged as an accessory to the murder of his ex-wife and the mother of his two children, Noleen Hayson Pal, 30, who was killed in April 2013. His 34-year-old girlfriend, Amirah Droudis, had been charged with Pal’s murder

Described at the time as a “self-styled cleric,” Monis was apparently in a bitter custody battle with his ex-wife at the time of her death. Pal had allegedly been stabbed multiple times before being set on fire. Read more...

More about Australia, Sydney, Us World, Hostage, and Sydney Siege