Monis’ Shotgun at the Sydney Siege. Pellets? Bullets? Anything Else We Need To Know?

Monis’ gun. Photo supplied to media by the Inquest

by Mary W Maxwell and Malcolm Hughes

On March 15, 2017, after the afternoon Fringe performance of “Moot Court Trial for Martin Bryant,” there was a party. It was held at The Pub with No Beer (i.e., my home), but talk nevertheless flowed freely. Referring to the Sydney Siege (not Port Arthur, but what’s the diff), one of the male guests said “If I recall correctly, Officer A said he used 19 bullets to finish Monis off, one or two in the chest and one in the forehead. Total of three were needed, so where did the other 16 go?” Seems a reasonable question, and certainly not one that was put in the hallowed halls of Coroner’s Court.

The Comments section of my May 1, 2017 article “False Flags and the Sydney Siege” has been starting up some new arguments. So a brief discursus into some of the police testimony may be helpful. Chapter 2 of my book Inquest: Siege in Sydney, is entitled “Lucas Van der Walt, Expert in Wound Ballistics.”

That chapter also includes the testimony by expert witness Domenic Ranieri. (I have noted elsewhere that it seems wrong to me that the persons giving expert witness about gunshots in the Lindt Café are NSW police, as that police force is very much involved in the event in question.)

I shall now quote from page 34 to page 36 in the offending  Chapter 2. On those pages I incorporated Mal Hughes’s comments to an earlier Gumshoe article in which it was said that Domenic Ranieri’s testimony didn’t include a playing of the audio of the gunshots.

(Note: I think Ranieri’s testimony was June 30, 2016, but am not dead certain. It was my sloppiness at naming the day of Van der Walt’s testimony that led to Malcolm Hughes expensive foray into seeking the wrong transcript. That, however, became his entrée to whole new findings.)

Mal Hughes Has Questions

Mal Hughes is a Western Australian who wants us to consider that the person who shot Mr Tori Johnson may have been someone other than Monis!!

Hughes wrote to the coroner asking for the transcripts of Lucas Van der Walt’s testimony, expecting to receive the 2016 evidence but instead got material from 2015 that was even more fascinating. This cost him $144.50 for 9 pages — $16 per page.

I quote here (on page 35 of Inquest) what Mal wrote in a GumshoeNews,.com Comment on December 7, 2016:

Man Monis had numerous 12 gauge shotgun cartridges, 2 in the weapon and 21 in his pockets. There were also 5 cartridges that had been fired.

For those that know about shotguns, this may be something of significance. Of the 2 cartridges recovered from the Monis gun, 1 was in the magazine and 1 in the feeding chamber, but not actually in the chamber yet.

From court questioning:

“Q. That suggests that some action had occurred, which had ejected the previous used cartridge, but the new cartridge had not been fully loaded, is that so.

A. That might have been, or just the firearm falling, maybe, and the force of it striking the floor might have assisted in opening the mechanism and only partly feeding the next cartridge and not actually chambering it.”

The 12 gauge cartridges were of varying types of shot also made by different manufacturers and all about 20 years since manufacture. (1995 to 1999)

The above information should bring about several questions to any thinking person. Mr Monis arrived in Australia in 1996. First, why would a person planning a hostage situation choose a shotgun as the weapon?

Why did he have cartridges produced for different uses, for his purpose of possible indoor shootings? Why would that person carry 21 live cartridges in his pocket?

I don’t imagine the large number of cartridges was meant to intimidate hostages, as these were hidden from view. Also, such a large number of cartridges could not possibly be used before the hostage taker would be overcome (had he started firing).

It is known – or at least stated confidently by persons at the Inquest — that at least one shot was fired from the shotgun. That occurred at 2.03am on December 16 just as a group of hostages escaped via the lift-lobby door. As for any additional shots, I don’t know what forensic evidence exists to confirm that more than one shot was fired from the shotgun – that is, apart from the number of empty cartridge cases.

Surely correct forensic investigations would be able to supply the actual number of cartridges fired by the number and size of shotgun pellets retrieved from the ceiling and walls, or the glass panels or embedded in the furniture and or in persons.

Why would a potential hostage taker bring with him, already used cartridge cases to the scene? As mentioned above, 5 empty cartridge cases were submitted to the inquiry but only one confirmed shot was fired to my knowledge. There is no mention in the evidence (I mean the evidence I have seen so far) where the 5 fired cartridges were retrieved from. That is, were they on Mr Monis’ body, on a table or about the floor?

Finally, as complained by a Commenter to Gumshoe News, the audiotape, not the expert’s interpretation of it, is the evidence of record. The Inquest should treat it accordingly.

That ends Mal Hughes’ remarks for that day. He has now been waiting a half-year to obtain data from the coroner’s court. He asks to see plain old testimony, not classified stuff – though why anything would be classified about the Lindt Café siege escapes me.

Finally, let me mention that it was also said, at the Pub with No Beer, that Officer A claims to have first put his red laser on Monis’ chest and shot him and THEN raised his sights to Monis’ forehead and shot him dead. I have since asked a medical student: “If I shoot a guy in the chest will he fall immediately?”  Reply “Yes, he will fall immediately.”

Here is a fresh question:  Did Man Haron Monis do a Ken Lay?

— Malcolm Hughes, writer for Gumshoe, is ex-Army (Vietnam war, to be exact). He tries to explain to Mary W Maxwell, publican, why there are significant issues with the Inquest.