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They were willing to wait this out, to ensure that this would end peacefully, obviously they figured that they had reach ed point in the negotiations where it wasn't going to go any further. perhaps the gunman was get itin tired, sleepy, so they decided to pounce. but certainly the siege now over and we're learning much more details about this gunman who has a very checkered and dodgy past. i just want to read some of it to you. he pled guilty to writing offensive letters to a family of veterans who had passed away. >> in fact, anna -- i want to break in for a moment, i know we're on delay, bu...

Sydney with reporter kathy novak. tell us more, kathy. >> we are, we are learning now it's about 2:00 a.m. in sydney. police have identified this hostage taker, he's named man haron moniz, a self-proclaimed sheik haron. in 2007 he was convicted of writing offensive letters to the families of soldiers who died while fighting in afghanistan. he has been fighting those charges all the way up until last year and he has been convicted on those letter-writing charges but is currently on bail on two other very separate serious charges. the first he is accused of being an accessory to the murder of hi...

Of the situation identified the gunman as a self-styled muslim cleric. last year he pled guilty to writing offensive letters to the families of australian service members who were killed in action in iraq and afghanistan. he also faces charges of sexual assault and an accessory in the murder of his ex-wife. the hostage standoff in sydney's central business district was certainly shocking and unprecede unprecedented. anna corin has been on the scene for much of the standoff doing amazing work for all of us. anna, give us the latest. what do we know about the raid? how was it carried out? >> wol...

Atika, what more do we know and what more does the u.s. know about this man? >> well, what we know is basically he was very well known to australian police. he conducted a number of attention-seeking protests, changing himself to court, for example, in 2011 and he was charged as you mentioned in those two separate cases he sent a string of offensive letters to families of diggers dying in afghanistan. he was convicted of those letters and sentenced to 3 hours of community service. separately, last year he was also charged as being an accessory to the murder of his former wife. that case is sti...

He called terrorist campaign by allying itself with the u.s.-led coalition that has targeted -- >> but there's no evidence of a direct connection with isis or any terrorist group? >> so far there's no direct connection that we see. there's also no direct connection that we see with a larger group. it seemed that he acted on his own. >> jim, from the suspected gunman's background, he faced more than 40 charges of sexual or indecent assault. in 2013, he was charged with being an accessory to the murder of his ex-wife, and he was convicted of sending offensive letters to relatives of fallen austr...