The wife of the Bourke Street terrorist who stabbed three men, one fatally, is reportedly refusing to co-operate with police investigations.
Hours after Hassan Khalif Shire Ali was shot dead by police in Melbourne on Friday, police raided the bungalow he shared with his wife and young son in the city’s north.
His wife was initially reported missing, but was found one day later and spoke to police. She has allegedly also been radicalised.
But, it has since been revealed she reportedly refuses to co-operate with investigations, as police try to understand what was going through Ali’s mind in his final hours.
The wife of Hassan Khalif Shire Ali (pictured) reportedly refuses to co-operate with police investigations
Ali was seen ‘storming out’ of the bungalow the couple shared only days before the attack with his wife desperately pursuing him, neighbours told The Age.
She returned to the converted garage in the backyard of an unassuming young family with her son, where she remained until the Friday afternoon attack.
When she heard of the attack, she was whisked out of the home, reportedly by her mother, until police caught up with her the next day.
Ali’s father left a message for her with the owner of the main house: ‘This is life.’
She is now being closely monitored by the national security authorities as they work to understand the last movements of the dead terrorist, The Australian reports.
Neighbours (pictured) saw Ali and the woman believed to be his wife arguing before the attack
In lengthy raids on the couple’s bungalow, police seized bags worth of evidence (pictured)
During their raids of the couple’s bungalow, as well as Ali’s family home in the city’s western suburb of Werribee, they seized a number of electronics.
They’re currently being worked on by hackers, since the passwords were only known by Ali, but authorities are hopeful they’ll provide some answers.
Ali’s motive, however, may have been made clearer by the revelation of his connection with a number of notorious Jihadis.
Ali was reportedly friends with Brighton siege terrorist Yacqub Khayre (pictured)
Ali was also Facebook friends with notorious ISIS extremist Khaled Sharrouf (right)
He was reportedly friends with the Somalian terrorist responsible for the Brighton siege in June 2017.
Yacqub Khayre, 29, murdered receptionist Nick Hao and took another woman hostage in a serviced apartment complex in the southeastern Melbourne subur.
He reportedly made a phone call from the apartment, saying: ‘This is for IS, this is for al-Qaeda.’
He was shot dead by police in a brief shootout. The female hostage survived.
While Ali and Khayre ran in the same circle of friends, his name didn’t surface when Joint Counter-Terrorism Team detectives investigated Khayre, a source told the Herald Sun.
Ali did, however, emerge as a friend of one of Melbourne’s most notorious jihadists, Khaled Sharrouf.
The pair were friends on Facebook, with Ali listing his occupation as ‘Mujahid in sha Allah (God willing) at Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham’.