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Melbourne terror raids: Family of released suspect Zakaria Dabboussi say he is not an extremist

Police were heavy-handed, frightening young children during a raid that targeted suspected Christmas Day plotter Zakaria Dabboussi, his family says.

Mr Dabboussi was on Friday night released without charge.

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His father, Youssef, described the search as "a terror act, a cowardly act" and said police would have been welcomed into the home, even if the suspect was not home at the time.

Instead, he says, another son, Mohamed, was assaulted, two twin eight-year-old grandsons had a gun pointed at them, and another, 12-year-old Mahmoud, was knocked in the head with the gun.

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"There's no need for this. We're not in Chicago, we're in Australia," he said.

Youssef Dabboussi believes there was no way Zakaria would have been involved in extremism, but said he had passionate views regarding the Syria conflict.

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He said his son had worked in his own IT business in Preston, and had been studying, but was now working at Woolworths. He was also a Collingwood fan and used to be involved in the Westmeadows Football Club, according to his father.

Mr Dabboussi's Facebook page hosts a series of videos, including one depicting Christmas as an "evil" occasion and St Nicholas, or Santa Claus, as "the devil".

"When [the Germans] depicted him they depicted him with red fur. He had a red fur coat, and his base was in the North, and he was the essence of evil," says an unidentified preacher, with an American accent, apparently speaking in Miami.

"So what we are actually seeing is that the Christmas occasion was actually the time of evil," the preacher says.

Mr Dabboussi was in hospital at the time of the raid, recovering from serious surgery, and was being visited by his daughter and wife.

But Mohamed, other brothers of Zakaria, and their nephews and nieces were home.

Mohamed was laying on his bed, playing on a games console when he heard police burst into the front room of the house and start shouting.

He says he was face down on the ground before police entered his room, but was still beaten and kicked and asked "where are the bombs?"

Blood stains could be seen on the carpet next to his bed on Friday morning.

Mahmoud says he is not sure whether he was knocked to the right of his head by accident. He says he was not scared, but worried for his seven-year-old sister.

Their mother, Zena Taleb, who was visiting her father in hospital at the time of the raid, said it appeared that all that was taken from the house was Zakaria's laptop.

"Nine hours they were here, and just a laptop," she said.

She also finds it impossible to believe that her brother could have been planning a Christmas Day terror attack.

"My brother is all yap, yap, yap. All talk," she said.

"Every year on Christmas Day we go down to Geelong with the family; it's become something a few Lebanese families do.

"I spoke to him about it just the other day, about what he was going to do, jump off the pier and things like that."

She hoped her brother - one of nine children - would be able to join them at Eastern Park beach, but hoped to know more about the case against him later on Friday.

When Zakaria returned home from the gym, with his friend Hussein Taleb, they were thrown face-first into the concrete driveway, Mr Taleb said. Police had arrived at the house about 10 minutes earlier, the family said.

Among mixed martial arts and football videos, and others of him fishing, Mr Dabboussi also posted videos on Facebook that depict the carnage in Aleppo, Syria, where Russian and Syrian forces are besieging a group of Islamic rebels, with many civilians also trapped.

He also ridicules the Shiite version of Islam, suggesting they pray using the wrong posture, and are misled about one god. 

Much of Islamic State's warfare in Syria and Iraq has been conducted against Shiite muslims. 

Mr Taleb said there was no way his friend, who he knew as cheeky, well-educated and clever, was capable of violence: "He's not a terrorist."