By CAM LUCADOU-WELLS
ENDEAVOUR Hills teenager Numan Haider was under the watch of intelligence agency Asio for months before he stabbed two police officers in 2014, a coronial inquest has been told.
A former Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation case officer, known by her Asio pseudonym of Julie Carrington, told the hearing on 27 April that she oversaw phone tapping and surveillance intelligence on the 18-year-old.
In May 2014, Asio zoned in on a mobile phone user – later identified as Haider – who attended the suspect Al Furqan Islamic bookshop in Springvale South.
The shop was known as a hub for extreme Islam discourse, and its past attendees had flown to hot-spot Syria, Ms Carrington said.
Asio knew the phone user was allegedly trying to avoid scrutiny from authorities and wanted to fight in Syria.
In June a telephone intercept warrant was obtained for the phone which was subscribed to an address of a vacant lot.
Ms Carrington stated that from early taps Haider seemed “security aware” and supportive of Islamic State.
He attempted to conceal “nefarious” plans to travel to Syria with an associate whose identity was suppressed by coroner John Olle.
This seemed at odds with his family’s version that he was seeking a passport to travel with them to Germany and Afghanistan, Ms Carrington said.
Ms Carrington and another Asio officer visited Haider’s family on 31 July with the hope of disrupting his plans to travel to Syria.
The officers identified themselves and explained that they did not have power to arrest Haider.
They told the family that Haider was not in any trouble but were concerned about young people being radicalised for “violent jihad” overseas.
During the talks, Haider seemed “sheepish”, kept his head down and gave short answers when spoken to about Al Furqan associates, Ms Carrington said.
Haider told the officers that he had stopped going to the bookstore two months ago.
Friends had told him that Islamic State had done “good things” in Iraq and Syria.
Ms Carrington said the family had confronted one associate, who they considered a bad influence on an increasingly “religious” Haider.
They told Asio the intervention was successful and that Haider wasn’t being radicalised, Ms Carrington said.
According to telephone taps, Haider was not happy with the strict way his family were dealing with him.
Ms Carrington said Haider – in his last month alive – was spending time from the family home without informing his parents, had an interest in obtaining weapons and in then-Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s upcoming visits to Melbourne.
On 18 September he had waved a Shahada flag in Dandenong Plaza.
Five days later, the Joint Counter Terrorism Team of federal and state police met Haider at Endeavour Hills police station.
Ms Carrington’s role was to pass on information to the Joint Counter Terrorism Team from physical and telephone surveillance on Haider’s whereabouts and whether he was with associates on the day.
She passed on that Haider was “on his way” leaving a Hungry Jack’s store on the way to the rendezvous with officers at Endeavour Hills police station.
She, however, did not have real-time monitoring of a call Haider made to an associate before he left the store, the inquest was told.
In the call, Haider said “dogs (police) came to my house” and “my stupid parents let them”.
Ms Carrington did monitor subsequent calls between Haider and a police officer he was set to meet that night.
Minutes later in a dark car park outside the police station, Haider met the two JCTT officers.
He stabbed them both before one of them was able to shoot him dead.
The inquest at the County Court continues.
