Sydney Gunman Claimed to Be Iranian Spy

An Australian coroner’s court was told Monday that Man Haron Monis, the gunman who held 17 people hostage at a Sydney café in December, claimed to be an Iranian spy and a member of a persecuted sect of Islam in order to seek asylum in Australia. The claims were “almost certainly a fiction” and Monis was a “complex and secretive man about his own life,” said Jeremy Gormly, a lawyer assisting the coroner. The inquest into the December incident, which left three people dead including Monis, begins its initial two-week phase focusing on the gunman’s life and last two decades in Australia. Monis was also diagnosed in 2010 with a form of schizophrenia and reportedly tried to join two Sydney chapters of the Rebels outlaw motorcycle gang.