Iran says the Sydney siege tragedy would have been prevented had Australia heeded its warnings over gunman Man Haron Monis and extradited him to face fraud charges.
Monis was wanted by Iranian authorities which informed Interpol and the Australian government as early as the 2000s about the man, who was born Mohammed Hassan Manteghi in a town almost 400km from Tehran.
The long-awaited findings of the Lindt siege inquest on Wednesday found that Monis had defrauded customers of his travel agency in Iran of about $550,000 before he fled to Australia.
But Australia did not have an extradition treaty with Iran and Monis was not taken back to face the charges.
Iran’s ambassador in Canberra, Abdolhossein Vahaji, told SBS World News that had the extradition been granted the siege would have never happened.
“If we could have repatriated that person from Australia to Iran, under any circumstances, under any rules and regulations … if we could do that, I believe that this tragedy would be prevented," he said.
“Both countries have been involved in this tragedy.
“The important thing is we have to get a lesson from this kind of procedure."
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Mr Vahaji described Monis as a religious fraud and a cheat.
“I believe he was fooling society. He was cheating the people,” he said.
“He was not a normal person. He was not a religious person. He was carrying those uniform that clergy people were using in order to fool society, fool the people.
“He was mentally distorted.”
Australian authorities are now working with Iran on extraditing another individual on a financial related matter, he said.
Mr Vahaji wouldn’t go into the details but said it did not involve a threat to Australia’s national security.
“Fortunately we are now on the right track,” he said.
Meanwhile, the inquest findings said ASIO received “potentially adverse information” about Monis in 1996 unrelated to a terrorism threat.
Monis later applied for a protection visa claiming to be a refugee.
He was granted it in August 2000, with ASIO concluding he did not pose a risk to national security.
