"He was a powerful man, a very important man in Iran," a former friend of Monis's who lives in Sydney now said. "Anything he wanted, he could have."

Monis came from a religious family with roots in the ancient city of Borujerd, in the north-west of Iran. (One of Monis's later aliases, Boroujerdi, means "from Borujerd".) He studied the Koran and became a minor cleric, before attending Tehran's most elite university – "the one all the leaders graduate from" – where he studied political science.

The contacts Monis made there proved useful, as did his marriage to a woman whose father was the right-hand man to a prominent figure in Iran's Islamic Revolution. "I would go to Man's house and see photos of him with famous people, with military people, with generals," said his friend, who met Monis in 1992.

Monis and his wife lived in a rich suburb in north-west Tehran, where he was surrounded by members of government and regime officials, his friend said. He ran several companies, including a travel agency. But his main business was a trading company that took advantage of Iran's black market. "Man would use his connections in the government to get goods, like TVs, at cheap prices. He would use another man to then sell those things and he would take a little bit of the money."

Monis began writing poetry as a teenager and his work was published in newspapers and magazines. "He was well known in the book community," his friend said.

In 1995, as Mohammad Hassan Manteghi, he published a collection of poems called Daroon and Boroon (Inside and Outside), in which he talks of "wise drunks" and "the flame of hell", and boasts of his unfathomable ability ("This is a beautiful story far from ugliness … The poem of Manteghi you cannot understand"). "Everybody became my friend but couldn't learn my secret," he writes.

"In Iran, Man was one of the people who everybody wants to be around, because he had connections and he was successful," his friend said. "But he stayed away from people – he was very private. He would never give away anything of himself."

In 1996, Monis left his wife and two daughters and fled to Australia, where he was granted political asylum. He claimed to have worked for the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security, where he witnessed torture and was privy to the government's terrorist operations. "He never mentioned this intelligence work to me, but I think it is believable," his friend said.

A few years later his friend also came to Australia and the two men resumed contact. But Monis had become even more secretive. "He didn't want to talk on the phone, because he thought it was tapped. When he was driving he thought that police were behind him."

Monis never mentioned his wife, Noleen Pal, nor their two children, who were born in 2004 and 2008. "She was the secret wife," his friend said. "I also never knew that he was working as a spiritual healer."

In the end, Monis became a "ghost".  Late last year, after Monis was charged as an accessory to the murder of Pal, his friend got a call from a lawyer, asking if he would cover the bail money. "The maximum I could pay was $10,000, which they accepted."

The last time they spoke was three months ago. "When I heard about the siege, I thought 'What idiot could do this?' Then I saw it was him. It was incredible. This person who did this, it wasn't the person I knew."