By CAM LUCADOU-WELLS
A FEDERAL Police agent has told a coronial inquest that he was certain that teenage terror suspect Numan Haider was “going to cut my head off”.
In his witness statement, Officer B told the Coroners’ Court on 17 March that Haider had attacked him soon after they met and shook hands outside Endeavour Hills police station on 23 September 2014.
The agent had been looking inside a silver car that Haider arrived in when his Victoria Police colleague asked Haider to empty his pockets.
Officer B heard Haider question why that had to be done, and then heard a yell.
When the officer looked up, he saw Haider holding a knife.
“In a split second he was on me.”
Then Officer B “shut down”, according to his statement tendered to coroner John Olle.
He had no audio perception, he couldn’t tell if he was being stabbed or slashed and in what order things were happening.
He recalled his eye bled heavily, the blood ran down his face but he didn’t feel pain.
Haider then moved around behind Officer B’s head. The agent went down to the ground and reached for his gun but could not release it.
“I remember thinking at the time Haider moved behind my head that he was going to kill me.
“I had known of a fatwa from a few days before suggesting that AFP and military should be killed and beheaded.
“All of that went through my mind as I was on the ground.”
Had a Victoria Police detective not shot the attacker “I am sure that Haider would have cut my throat and cut my head off”, Officer B stated.
That detective “certainly saved my life”, he stated.
Officer B’s “first audio” recollection was of the fatal gunshot which felled Haider instantaneously.
Officer B was taken to The Alfred hospital with a stab wound to the centre of his chest, requiring surgery to his liver.
His shoulder muscle had been cut in half by two other stabs and was sewn together. He required a full shoulder reconstruction.
The officer was also cut over his left eye and down a side of his face.
“I don’t think we could have done anything else than what we did,” his statement said.
“There was just not any time to react.”
