PM calls for tighter laws after Melbourne attack

Police investigating whether they were lured by known criminal to apartment building

Long-time criminal Yacqub Khayre tampered with his GPS ankle bracelet during a terror attack that killed an innocent man and wounded three police officers in Melbourne on Monday.

Police are investigating whether Khayre, who was shot dead by police, deliberately lured them into a deadly ambush after it was revealed he had booked a female escort, whom he took hostage, and sparked an alert on his tracker.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said he would speak with state leaders on Friday about changing state laws so that dangerous criminals like Khayre were not released from prison early on parole.

“There have been too many cases of people on parole committing violent offences of this kind,” Turnbull told reporters. He added: “It is a terrorist attack and it underlines the need for us to be constantly vigilant, never to be deterred, always defiant, in the face of Islamist terrorism.”

Khayre, a Somali refugee, was on parole when he shot dead a male employee of an escort agency in the foyer of a Brighton apartment building and barricaded himself inside a room on Monday afternoon.

At 6pm local time, he left the building and fired on police, wounding three of them before they killed him in a hail of bullets.

Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton says it is a “possibility” the 29-year-old wanted to lure police into a deadly shootout.

There was “certainly a booking made to see an escort at the premises. He’s then turned up at the premises with a firearm”, Ashton said yesterday.

“That’s all been weighed into the calculations, but we haven’t found anything like a note or any comment around that.”

Officers had earlier found the body of a 36-year-old clerk in the foyer. “He appears to [have been] in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Ashton said.

Corrections Victoria confirmed Khayre’s GPS tracker was tampered with while the siege was under way.

Isis (Islamic State) claimed responsibility for the attack online, but Ashton downplayed their statement.

“We’re aware of them having claimed responsibility, but then they always tend to jump up and claim responsibility every time something happens,” he said. “But he’s also made statements last night around alQaeda.”