The jihadist gunman behind the deadly hostage ordeal in Sydney was a sexual predator who once penned letters to the families of fallen Australian soldiers calling them “murderers.”
Iranian-born Man Haron Monis recently tried to get his conviction on the hate mail overturned — and was rebuffed only Friday, leading some to suggest it may have helped trigger his rampage.
Monis, 50, was born Manteghi Bourjerdi and moved to Australia in 1996 as a refugee, news reports said.
He had long been on authorities’ radar.
After writing the poison-pen letters to the soldiers’ kin railing against Australian involvement in Afghanistan — and calling the dead men child-killers — Monis was sentenced to 300 hours of community service last year.
Monis, who proclaimed himself a sheik, also was suspected of being an accomplice in the slaying of his ex-wife.
Authorities said the victim was stabbed 18 times, doused with lighter fluid and set on fire in an apartment building stairwell in November 2013. The couple had two children.
Monis’ girlfriend was arrested in the slaying.
“They should have put him away and thrown away the key,” said Ayuut Khalik, the godfather of the slain woman.
“We found out he was hitting her and stuff, and he was telling his kids white people are bad.”
Khalik said Monis forced his wife to wear a hijab at all times and forbade her from contact with non-Muslims.
In April 2014, Monis was charged with sexually assaulting seven women while he was a “spiritual healer” at his clinic, where he claimed to be an expert in astrology, meditation and black magic.
In October, he was charged with 40 more sexual offenses.
He operated a pro-Islam website on which he said the allegations against him were “political cases against this Muslim activist, not real criminal cases,” according to ABC News.
The website insisted that Monis is “not a member of any organization or party” but “supports his Muslim brothers [and] sisters . . . [and] he promotes peace.”
His Web site also lashed out against what he called “Australian oppression and terrorism.’’
“Islam is the religion of peace, that’s why Muslims fight against the terrorism of America and its allies,” he wrote on Twitter recently.
Monis’ Facebook page, which was shut down during the siege, had 14,725 “likes” before it was taken down, The Age newspaper reported.
