Hostage negotiators have been highly praised despite their failed attempt to end the Sydney siege peacefully.

Within six hours of Iranian cleric Man Haron Monis seizing control of the Lindt cafe in Martin Place, NSW Police negotiators made contact and, according to experts, tried to build a level of rapport with the disturbed man.

University of Wollongong Professor Adam Dolnik, who teaches terrorism studies and trains hostage negotiators around the world, told The New Daily that the “first step” of any negotiation is to secure the perimeter to prevent passers-by from interfering.

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No more than 30 minutes after the standoff began, police had established a 150-metre exclusion zone around the cafe and flooded the area with specialist police.

“After that, the negotiator will try to establish contact,” said Professor Dolnik, who is himself a trained negotiator.

‘Time is on your side’

The first words to Monis might have been a series of questions, such as: ‘What’s going on inside?’ and ‘Is everybody okay?’

This is the most dangerous time for hostages, so negotiators would have been trying to distract Monis from initial executions. They succeeded.

“If you are engaging the hostage taker on the telephone, he doesn’t have enough time to do other things, such as hurting hostages,” Professor Dolnik said.

Once negotiators established a clear line of communication, their intent would have been to buy time, build trust and rapport, glean information about his motives, wear Monis down, and gradually start to influence his decisions.

“Time is on your side,” the Professor said.

Humanise the hostages

A top priority would have been to humanise the 17 people inside the cafe, giving them names and telling Monis of the children waiting for them at home, to prevent executions.

Patrick Van Grinsven, a former hostage negotiator for 21 years with Queensland Police, said the NSW negotiators, with whom he worked for many years, are trained by global specialists from the FBI, Scotland Yard, and the Royal Mountain Canadian Police and are “of the highest standard”.

Given their high level of training, they would not have made the common mistake of pushing a hasty resolution.

Slow, careful and active listening would have been key, allowing Monis to vent and relax.

“Slowly, slowly, you climb up the ladder to the point where you have more influence over the decision making of this person,” Professor Dolnik said.

By 5pm on Monday, five hostages had escaped Monis’ clutches, but Prof Dolnik said it was more likely they escaped or that Monis spontaneously let them go than that negotiators secured their release.

“It takes quite some time to actually facilitate this, and I think the tactical officers on the scene looked quite surprised at the coming out of those people,” he said.

‘Boil the frog’

There are many reports that Monis demanded, through the hostages, to speak with the Prime Minister and to be given an Islamic State flag.

The negotiators’ first response would be to stall with phrases like: ‘Let me understand why you need that flag’, ‘How do you think this phone call with the Prime Minister might take place?’ and ‘Why are you interested in talking to him?’

And finally: ‘Okay, I’ve told the police commander about your demands. Help me convince him by releasing some hostages.’

In the background, the negotiation team would be writing out a “cluster” of excuses for why the demands could not be met, said Prof Dolnik, while the lead negotiator “boils the frog”.

“You keep slowly reducing the hostage taker’s hope that demands will be fulfilled, but you’re going to do it very, very slowly.”

Not a failure

Despite all these efforts, the siege ended in a hail of gunfire and three deaths as heavily armed combat police stormed the cafe in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

But Prof Dolnik said the negotiators did not fail in their duties.

“There were no cold-blooded executions of hostages. If there were deadlines, negotiators managed to pass them through without incident.”

Patrick Van Grinsven, now a barrister, said negotiation “works more often than not”, but noted that the likelihood of a peaceful outcome diminishes in an incident like the Sydney siege.

“It does make it more difficult because you might be dealing with someone who might have a different motivation at the end of the day,” he said.

Former US hostage negotiator Jim Cavanaugh described the police actions as very capable while they were ongoing.

“This is a textbook operation for tactical unit, on scene commanders, negotiators,” said Mr Cavanaugh, a retired Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives special agent hostage negotiator.

“From everything I have seen they are doing it according to the book.”

– with AAP