Hero who died tackling deli terrorist with his own gun – and the Muslim who led Jewish shoppers to safety
IT WAS a heroic act of selfsacrifice… and it cost a brave hostage his life.
Held captive inside the kosher supermarket, a Jewish hostage took what he knew would be his only chance to overpower Islamist killer Amedy Coulibaly.
In an instant, he managed to grab an assault rifle that the terrorist had left on the counter at the deli in Porte de Vincennes, eastern Paris, after storming in and killing three people.
But the bid for freedom turned to tragedy when the man discovered that the gun had been discarded because it was jammed.
And when Coulibaly caught sight of him, he murdered him in cold blood with another weapon from his lethal arsenal.
The Jewish man’s fate was revealed yesterday by another hostage in the Hyper Cacher atrocity on Friday afternoon.
Last night there were unconfirmed reports which named the hero as 22year-old Yohan Cohen.
The witness, who gave his name as Mickael B, told how Coulibaly, 32, rounded up customers and staff and took away mobile phones before calmly explaining he was part of the Islamic State terror group.
Mickael said: ‘Suddenly one of the customers tried to grab one of his guns which he’d left on the counter. It wasn’t working.
‘The terrorist had put it there because it had blocked after the first shots. He turned and shot at the customer who died on the spot.’
It is thought that the hero was the fourth person to die in the supermarket, with the first three gunned down as Coulibaly stormed in at 2pm, declaring: ‘You know who I am.’
One eyewitness said Coulibaly was smiling as he walked in, wearing a bulletproof vest over his T-shirt and jeans, and carrying a huge arsenal of deadly weapons.
Many of the others present in the shop, buying kosher food and drink before the Sabbath began, tried to hide at first.
Mickael’s plight was all the more desperate because he had his threeyear-old son with him.
The witness said: ‘I was heading for the check-out with the goods in my hand when I heard a bang – it was very loud. I thought it was a firecracker at first.
‘But turning, I saw a black man armed with two Kalashnikov rifles and I knew what was happening.
‘I grabbed my son by the collar and fled to the back of the store. There, with other customers, we ran down a spiral staircase into the basement. We all piled into one of two cold rooms. But our door wouldn’t close. We were terrified.
‘Five minutes later a store employee was sent down by the killer. She said he said we were to go back up, otherwise there’d be car- nage. I refused to go up. By now my son, understanding nothing, was panicking. Then minutes later the employee comes back down with the same message.
‘This time I decided to follow her up the spiral staircase.’
At the top of the stairs Mickael saw a man lying in a pool of blood, then encountered the ‘strangely calm’ terrorist and witnessed the execution of a fellow customer.
Some of the customers kept themselves hidden in the basement cold stores, spending three hours in below-freezing temperatures, yet still contacting loved ones outside.
One shopper, called Noemi, managed to call a friend and told him: ‘I am very scared. I hear some noise upstairs. Make sure the police get here fast.’
Other customers were able to flee the store amid the confusion before Coulibaly brought the heavy metal shutters down on the front door.
A shopper called Daniel said: ‘There were about 20 people in the store including kids when this guy came in with a big gun.
‘He was in the middle of the shop and I realised straight away what was happening. He was very calm and quiet and he was just smiling. He didn’t say anything at first.
‘Everyone was panicking and I managed to duck around him and ran outside. Then the metal shutters on the shop entrance came down.’ Coulibaly made a series of demands of his captives, including ordering Mickael to ring the media.
He told them he was acting on behalf of Islamic State but had co-ordinated his actions with the brothers behind the massacre at satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, even though they represented a rival terror group, Al Qaeda In The Arabian Peninsula.
While the gunman roamed the aisles, Mickael managed to call the police and was told to prepare himself to lie on the ground when officers stormed the store.
He said: ‘It was obvious that the terrorist was preparing to die. He said it was his reward. He had a weapon in each hand and boxes of cartridges nearby. He suddenly began to pray.’
Because Mickael’s phone was still connected to the police, they heard Coulibaly praying and took it as an opportunity to launch their rescue bid by opening the shop grille.
‘We flung ourselves to the ground. The noise was deafening,’ Mickael said.
As stun grenades flashed behind him, and with his head down, Coulibaly made a suicidal dash to the entrance of the store where dozens of heavily armed officers were waiting.
Dramatic footage filmed by a bystander showed how he was gunned down by police in a hail of bullets as he rushed outside.
The terrorist was blown off his feet by a shot to the chest as he reached the automatic glass front doors, a weapon falling from his hands as he fell. Coulibaly, who had murdered a rookie policewoman the previous day, was then repeatedly shot at point-blank range by the commandos. One of them had run into the shop alone while Coulibaly was still at large, after the shutters were blasted open.
The terrorist’s body was then
‘The terrorist shot him and he died on the spot’
unceremoniously dragged in a trail of blood to the side of the door of the shop, while police ushered the remaining hostages to safety as photographers captured the relief on their faces.
Some of them had been injured in the drama, but Mickael and his son were believed to be unhurt. But the danger did not end with Coulibaly’s death.
It later emerged that the terrorist had booby-trapped the building with 15 sticks of dynamite and a detonator.
Investigators also found two machine guns, two pistols and ammunition inside.