Survivor tells of madman’s evil endgame
A survivor of the deadly terrorist siege at a Jewish grocery in Paris revealed gripping details on Sunday about coming face to face with the Islamic militant who murdered four innocent victims before dying in a hail of police bullets.
The survivor, identified only as “Mickael B,” said he was checking out at the Hyper Cacher on Friday when he heard a loud bang.
“Turning, I saw a black man armed with two Kalashnikov rifles and I knew something bad was happening,” Mickael said, according to the Daily Mail.
“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. Our door wouldn’t close. We were terrified.”
The terrorist, Amedy Coulibaly, later learned of the hideout and sent a store worker down to order everyone upstairs, he said.
After initially refusing, Mickael followed to the top of the staircase, where “a man was dying in a pool of his own blood.”
“The terrorist introduced himself to us . . . ‘I am Amedy Coulibaly, Malian and Muslim. I belong to the Is lamic State,’ he told us.”
Mickael said he then saw Coulibaly shoot a man who tried to grab a gun he had left on a counter, after which he made Mickael call a French TV station so Coulibaly could boast about his crimes.
Mickael said he also secretly called the cops, who told him to prepare for an imminent counterassault — which came as Coulibaly began praying while clutching a weapon in each hand.
“It was obvious that the terrorist was preparing to die. He said it was his reward,” Mickael said.
Also Sunday, a video surfaced that showed Coulibaly pledging allegiance to the Islamic State terror group and linking the market attack to the earlier slaughter at Charlie Hebdo.
Coulibaly appeared sitting next to an assault rifle and the ISIS flag.
“What we are doing is completely legitimate, given what they are doing,” he said in French, ending his message by exhorting others to terror.
Coulibaly’s wife, Hayat Boumeddiene, is believed to have fled France before the attacks, and to be hiding out in Syria.