A young man shot dead by police on a Queensland highway after an elderly couple were fatally stabbed was "absolutely radicalised", an inquest has heard.
Terrorism expert Levi West could not think of anything that may have avoided Raghe Abdi's fatal December 2020 confrontation, saying the 22-year-old appeared determined to go down a particular path.
Investigations suggested Abdi killed elderly couple Maurice and Zoe Antill at their home before he was shot the next morning on the Logan Motorway wielding a knife at officers and yelling "Allahu Akbar".
It was later described as a "terrorism event".
At the time Abdi was being monitored by the counter-terrorism team, amid an investigation into whether he was preparing to be involved in a foreign incursion after being intercepted trying to leave Brisbane Airport for Somalia in 2019.
Mr West told an inquest into the 2020 deaths that there was little doubt that Abdi held jihadist beliefs, likely from exposure to friends and social networks.
"My assessment was that he was absolutely radicalised," he told coroner Stephanie Gallagher on Thursday.
He said it was a reasonable possibility that Abdi was likely motivated "in part" by jihadist ideology when he walked along the Logan Motorway and then engaged with police.
"At this stage of his trajectory, life has gone very, very, very badly and it had been going badly for some period of time," said Mr West, Charles Sturt University terrorism studies director and national security consultant.
"As it culminates his option based on his faith is not suicide.
"But if you can engage law enforcement in a scenario where it's likely that you are going to die then that gets you out of the suicide dilemma."
However, Mr West said he found no evidence to suggest that the Antills' deaths were motivated by terrorist group Islamic State or jihadist ideology.
"In fact I found very little evidence to understand how exactly that circumstance came about, why he went to the house that he went to, what he was trying to do at the property," he said.
"I am not sure that that was preventable. I don't think the counter terrorism unit could have done anything at all in regards to that because I don't think that was ideologically motivated - it was opportunistic at best."
Under cross-examination Mr West said it was feasible that Abdi's alleged conduct at the Antills' house was consistent with instruction from Islamic State propaganda "in the broadest sense".
Police have alleged at the inquest that Abdi assaulted the elderly couple before going into their house, grabbing a knife and fatally stabbing them in their backyard.
Mr West said the full spectrum of counter-terrorism measures were used by relevant authorities to assist Abdi before the shooting.
"They tried all the available tools from sticks to carrots, to incentivise him to try and go the other way," he said.
"The big caveat of course is that we can't force him to do any of those things."
Mr West said Abdi's death was tragic but not the result of policy or operational failures.
Asked if there was anything he could think of that could have avoided the fatal showdown with police, Mr West said: "Not really ... he seemed determined regardless that he was going to go down a particular path and sometimes that's just what happens."
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