It was the night of September 19 this year, in the aftermath of the dawn raids on a dozen houses around south-west Sydney by the anti-terrorism squad. I had been sent out to report on the mood in the Muslim community and to attend an evening rally in Lakemba organised by Muslim organisation Hizb ut Tahrir .
The group is on the more radical end of the spectrum - its aim is to establish a global caliphate governed by Sharia law - and the mood was very tense in the park near Lakemba station.
About 400 men, mostly with long beards, had gathered. A group of women hovered on the fringe of the meeting, minding children and there was a large contingent of media.
Among the angry crowd was a man dressed in a long white robe and an embroidered white cap. He was tall, wore glasses, and had a neatly clipped beard, greying at the edges.
I approached him after the rally to ask him why he had attended. He was willing to talk and introduced himself as Sheik Haron.
"We just want to voice against injustice, and we want to express our feelings that this not a war against terrorism, it is a war against Muslims," he told me.
But Haron was more interested in talking about his letter-writing campaign. Aside from writing to the families of Australian Defence Force personnel killed in Afghanistan, Haron told me had been writing to politicians, the Australian Federal Police and the ombudsman about terrorist activities by non-Muslims.
"In the last few years I have been sending letters to politicians and I have criticised them [because] within Australia there is terrorist acts, yet they don't do anything about that, because they are not Muslims."
"If the person is not Muslim they just don't do anything."
He was convinced that these so-called terrorists were going unpunished. I had no idea what he meant.
When I asked for examples of these co-called terrorist acts, he directed me to his website, sheikharon.com. It has now been shut down. He told me I could read all the letters there.
My impression was he was a little unstable. He also seemed a little creepy. Ominously, he also told me he did not think giving speeches would be enough.
"I believe a speech is not enough. We have to do something," he said in my interview with him.
When I got back to the office, I googled Sheik Haron and discovered he was a self-styled figure whose real name was Man Haron Monis.
I found out about his battle in the High Court over the letters to ADF families, that he was charged with being an accessory before and after the fact of his ex-wife's murder, and that he was facing two charges for sexual assault.
I decided to drop his quotes from my story because I concluded he was a man on a campaign, who didn't represent the broader sentiments of the Muslim community.
