International Shia News Agency

Official: Australia ignored Iran’s warnings

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association)- A senior Iranian diplomat says the Australian government had ignored Iran’s repeated warnings about the criminal record of the man involved in the recent hostage-taking incident in Australia.

Ebrahim Rahimpour, who serves as Iran’s deputy foreign minister for Asia and Oceania, said Iran had repeatedly informed the Australian government about the criminal record of the man in Iran.

A gunman, identified by the Australian media as an Iranian refugee, stormed a café in central Sydney Monday morning and held people hostage there. The siege came to an end when police managed to release the hostages after 16 hours. The gunman and two other hostages were killed in the incident.

The hostage taker had moved to Australia 18 years ago from Iran and was accepted by the Australian government as a political asylum-seeker, according to reports.

Rahimpour said the man had divorced his first wife in Iran, leaving her with two children before migrating to Australia where he has been accused of being accessory to the killing of his second wife along with many other sexual abuse charges.

The Iranian official criticized the Australian government’s wrong policies in dealing with refugees and migrants and said the Australian people have every right to be concerned about their government’s weakness in dealing with the issue of refugees.

Commenting on the Western media’s ongoing hype about the Iranian nationality of the hostage taker, Rahimpour described the tactic as typical and threadbare.

“He had been used when he was a Shia, in a clerical outfit and was acting against us and now it is very clear that the fact that he was a refugee, Iranian and Muslim would be used for negative propaganda against our country in line with their own agendas,” he added.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry on Monday vehemently condemned the hostage-taking in Australia’s most populous city of Sydney.

“Resorting to inhumane methods and creating terror and panic in the name of the divine religion of Islam is not justifiable under any circumstances,” Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham said.

She noted that the Australian police had been fully aware of the psychological conditions of the hostage taker.

Experts blame the rising number of terrorist attacks in the world on those who support terrorism, including the United States, Israel, and certain regimes in the Middle East region that support Takfiri groups like as al-Nusra Front and ISIL.

 

 

Source:PressTV

www.shafaqna.com

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