HarryPDF2

The Mail on Sunday JANUARY 11 • 2015 6

Muslim in deli shepherded his Jewish customers to safety

IT WAS a heroic act of self- sacrifice… and it cost a brave hos-tage 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 terror-ist 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 hos-tage in the Hyper Cacher atrocity on Friday afternoon.

Last night there were unconfirmed reports which named the hero as 22-year-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 supermar-ket, 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 three-year-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 them-selves hidden in the basement cold stores, spending three hours in below-freezing temperatures, yet still contacting loved ones outside.

One shopper, called Noemi, man-aged 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 him-self to lie on the ground when offic-ers 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’

GOING IN: Blast grenades explode as police prepare to free the deli hostages

A MUSLIM employee at the supermarket at the centre of the Paris terror attacks has been hailed as a hero for saving the lives of Jewish customers.

Lassana Bathily put his own life at risk to protect people from Islamic fanatic Amedy Coulibaly – by hiding them in a cold store in the basement of Hyper Cacher.

Bathily came up with his quick-thinking plan when the gunman burst through the front doors on Friday.

The 24-year-old shop assistant, who comes from Mali in West

Africa, found six terrified customers a safe hiding place downstairs while the terrorist prowled the aisles above them.

‘When they ran down, I opened the door [to the cold store],’ Mr Bathily revealed yesterday.

‘There were several people who came to me.

‘I turned off the light, I turned off the freezer.

‘When I turned off the cold, I put them [hostages] in, I closed the

door, and I told them to try to stay calm.’

The hostages had to spend three hours in the darkened room, with temperatures still below freezing, until armed police stormed the deli and Coulibaly went down in a hail of bullets.

When the hostages were eventually freed, they congratulated Mr Bathily.

There are now calls for him to receive an honour from the French state, after he was likened to Oskar Schindler, the German industrialist who helped about

1,200 Jews escape the Holocaust. In a further show of unity between faiths in France yesterday, senior Muslims were cheered as they added flowers to a pile of floral tributes at the site of the Hyper Cacher massacre.

They were led by Hassen Chalghoumi, the imam of the city’s Drancy mosque, and they were accompanied by a local rabbi and a woman wearing a sash in the French national colours of red, white and blue.

Their gesture of solidarity as they arrived was met with

Hero hostage grabbed jihadi’s Kalashnikov and fired... it jammed and cost him his life

SAFE AT LAST: A man and his son flee from the shop after the terrorist is killed

CARNAGE IN PARIS THE DELI MASSACRE

By Martin Beckford

By Martin Beckford IN LONDON

and Andy Young IN PARIS

S1JANUARY 11 • 2015 The Mail on Sunday 7

Muslim in deli shepherded his Jewish customers to safety

QUICK THINKING: Lassana Bathily

cries of ‘Bravo’ from the watching crowd.

Mr Chalghoumi made a similar tribute on Thursday at the site of the attack on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

On that occasion he described the terrorists responsible for the atrocity as ‘criminals’ and ‘barbarians’ who had nothing to do with Islam.

As the group left yesterday, the crowd, which included Jews, Muslims and Christians, began to chant ‘tous ensemble’, meaning ‘everyone together’.

Hero hostage grabbed jihadi’s Kalashnikov and fired... it jammed and cost him his life

POSING happily with his girlfriend, this is a brave Hyper Cacher employee mur-dered during the Paris supermarket hos-tage siege.

Yohan Cohen, 22, was named as one of the four Jewish victims killed by Amedy Couli-baly during the attack, possibly after grab-bing a discarded gun. One of Mr Cohen’s friends revealed on Twitter that he had been working at Hyper Cacher to pay for his future wedding to girlfriend Sharon Seb.

Last night, as condolences poured in from around the world, Ms Seb posted on Face-book the simple message: ‘Je suis Yohan.’ And later, in an emotional tribute to her boy-friend, she wrote: ‘What am I going to do without you? How am I going to live without you? Why you?

‘My life is ruined without you. I will never achieve anything now. I need you in my life. We had so many plans.

‘I will never forget all our time together. You will remain the man of my life for eter-nity. I will remain faithful to you until my dying breath. I love you with an indescrib-able passion.’

Earlier she had changed her Facebook profile picture, posting an image showing her hugging her boyfriend.

A friend wrote in the comment field under-neath: ‘An eternal love.’

Mr Cohen’s aunt, Aurelie Pluvinage, uploaded a hand-drawn sketch of her nephew to her own Facebook page.

Mr Cohen, who was from Sarcelles in the northern suburbs of Paris, had only worked at the supermarket for a year.

Francois Pupponi, the deputy mayor of Sarcelles, said: ‘His family are devastated. He was a very nice boy.’

TRIBUTES to Yoav Hattab, one of the supermarket victims, poured in yesterday.

Avishalay Lauh, brother of Tunisian Mr Hattab, 21 – who was spending a year studying in the French capital – wrote on Facebook: ‘I am in shock. My darling brother was cowardly murdered. He did nothing wrong!’

Friend Marie Assous added: ‘May God avenge your blood and all the innocent heinously murdered in cold blood by barbarians, just because you are Jewish. Rest in peace little angel.’

Meanwhile, more details emerged about one of the other victims. Philippe Braham, who is believed to be in his 40s, was a teacher who lived with his wife Valerie and their three children in the town of L’Hay-les-Roses, about eight miles south of Paris. A neighbour described him as ‘a good man’. The final victim, Francois-Michel Saada, is believed to have been in his 60s.

Devoted – the victim who worked in supermarket to save up for his wedding

FRANTIC BUT FREE: Two terrified women are ushered away by police

SOMBRE MOOD:

A policeman takes flowers to the scene

yesterday

‘Rest in peace my little angel’ Friend’s tribute to student

VICTIMS: Yoav Hattab and, inset, Philippe Braham

KILLERS BURST IN, OUR BOSS SAID ‘HIDE’. . . THEN BLUFFED HIS WAY OUT

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.

MARRIAGE PLANS: Yohan Cohen with girlfriend Sharon Seb

ST

EV

E B

UR

TO

N /

VA

NTA

GE

NE

WS

.CO

.UK

S1

The Mail on Sunday JANUARY 11 • 2015 4

FROM BIKINIBEACH GIRL ...TO JIHADIWITH HER CROSSBOW

CARNAGE IN PARIS THE TERROR CELL

meddiene ended up in care, relying on social workers to bring her up.

She was in her early 20s when she met Coulibaly in Juvisy, the run-down Paris suburb where he was brought up. Questioned by police at his home in Nanterre, another Paris suburb, Boumeddiene’s father yes-terday said he was ‘shocked and horrified’ to learn his daughter was involved with a terrorist cell.

She told police who interviewed

her in 2010 as part of their inquir-ies into Coulibaly’s dealings with Islamic extremists that she had walked away from a low-paid job as a cashier in 2009 and began wear-ing an Islamic veil, the kind that is now illegal in France.

Boumeddiene said that she was inspired by her husband and the radicals she lived with to ‘read a lot of books on religion, and because of this I came to ask ques-tions on religion’.

She added: ‘When I saw the mas-sacre of the innocents in Palestine, in Iraq, in Chechnya, in Afghanistan or anywhere the Americans sent their bombers, all that… well, who are the terrorists?’

She said that when Americans killed innocents, it was the right of men to defend their women and chil-dren – one of the reasons she said

she started weapons training. Along with Coulibaly, she was pictured in 2010 visiting a convicted Al Qaeda terrorist, mentor Djamel Beghal – who was radicalised at the Finsbury Park mosque in North London – while he was under house arrest in Murat, Central France.

When police questioned her and said they knew she and Coulibaly had visited Beghal at the same time as Cherif Kouachi and two other convicted terrorists – jihadi recruiter Ahmed Laidouni and Farid Melouk of the Armed Islamic State terror group – she replied: ‘We went there for crossbow practice.’

Until recently the couple lived in Bagneux, a suburb of Paris where they were known as a devoutly religious, despite Coulibaly’s regu-lar run-ins with the law.

To neighbours, the pair were quiet and respectful. But while Boumed-diene had no criminal record, Couli-baly has a long history of both petty and serious crimes.

The only boy of a family of ten in

WANTED: Hayat Boumeddiene

TOGETHER: Hayat Boumeddiene on holiday with Amedy Coulibaly

WEARING a skimpy bikini as she embraces her muscular boy-friend, she looks like any other attractive young beachgoer on the French Riviera.

But the once-glamorous Hayat Boumeddiene, 26, is now the most wanted female terrorist suspect in the world. She is reported to have fled to Syria before her 32-year-old husband Amedy Coulibaly – the smiling young man in the picture – murdered four Jews in a Paris deli.

There were suggestions yesterday that Boumeddiene had helped her husband, along with fellow terror-ists Said and Cherif Kouachi, com-pile an arsenal of weapons which Paris prosecutors said included two

Russian-made Tokarev machine pistols, commercial explosives and hunting knives.

It is thought that the firearms were smuggled from the Balkans into Europe, and then into France by car – something a single woman is likely to have been able to get away with far easier than men.

As detectives try to learn more about the group responsible for France’s worst terrorist outrage this century, they know that piecing together Boumeddiene’s transfor-mation from a relaxed young woman into a terrorist training with a cross-bow will be essential. The former supermarket cashier is said to have been radicalised by the man she

would go on to marry in an Islamic, rather than civil, ceremony.

Like her husband, Boumeddiene was born into a large family of seven children, but when she was just six her mother died.

She is from an Algerian back-ground and family members altered their surname to ‘make it sound more French’, according to an inves-tigating source.

Estranged from her father, Bou-

Terror cell deemed ‘low risk’ From Page One

‘They were known as devoutly religious’

The Mail on Sunday JANUARY 11 • 2015

allies after fleeing the country. Official sources in Paris said that 24-hour scrutiny of members of her terror cell had been dropped to focus on other targets.

Last night, Boumeddiene, 26, was branded ‘armed and dangerous’ by France’s top policeman Jean-Marc Falcone, who said she was believed to have helped plan the attacks.

As long as five years ago she was pictured in full Islamic dress and using a lethal crossbow in the French countryside where she met jihadi recruiters. She and the three Paris killers were all known to the security services. Yet despite their fanatical hatred of the West and access to weapons, police decided to stop tracking them in July 2014.

Boumeddiene was reported to have flown from Madrid to Istanbul on January 2, crossing the Turkish border into Syria on Thursday.

This was the day after brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi, murdered 12 people at the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. It was also the day her husband, Amedy Coulibaly, murdered a female

police officer before shooting four hostages at a kosher delicatessen in Eastern Paris. The suggestion is that Boumeddiene knew the attacks were due to take place and fled.

Her husband and the Kouachi brothers were all gunned down by police commandos at the end of two sieges on Friday. Last night, as France remained on high alert, extraordinary stories of courage

emerged from those caught up in the deadly attacks:

A heroic customer at the kosher deli grabbed one of Coulibaly’s guns – but paid with his life after the weapon jammed

A Muslim worker at the shop helped Jewish customers hide from the terrorist, in what was hailed as an inspiring act of bravery

A father told how he and his three-year-old son had tried to hide from Coulibaly in the store basement, but was forced to follow the gunman’s orders until police launched their raid, killing the terrorist in a hail of bullets as he ran out of the shop’s doors

A hostage revealed how he bandaged a neck wound suffered by Charlie Hebdo murderer Said Kouachi, after the brothers took shelter at his printing works

Meanwhile, the family of a Muslim police officer shot dead by the brothers described them as ‘madmen’ with no religion.

Up to a million people, including David Cameron and other world leaders, are expected to join a march for peace and unity in Paris today. Counter-terrorism ministers

including Home Secretary Theresa May will also meet to discuss the West’s response to the growing threat of Islamist violence.

In London, landmarks including Tower Bridge and Trafalgar Square will display the colours of the French flag to show solidarity.

Security patrols were also being stepped up across London amid increased fears of attacks on Jewish communities. And Scotland Yard is asking travellers returning to Britain from France if they saw ‘any suspicious activity’ while away.

Boumeddiene and her co-conspirators were put under phone, internet and physical surveillance at the end of 2011, when Said Kouachi returned from Yemen, where he trained with Al Qaeda. There he met Anwar Al-Awlaki, a terrorist mastermind later killed in a US drone strike.

‘But between that date and the summer of 2014, nothing suggested any connection with a radical Islamist movement,’ said a Paris judicial source. ‘So the surveillance was stopped in order to refocus on other individuals who at that moment presented a higher risk.’

PARIS TERROR REPORTING TEAM: Peter Allen, Martin Beckford, Steve Burton, Nick Constable, Ben Ellery, Valerie Elliott, Philip Ide, Laura Molyneaux, Simon Murphy, Michael Powell, Harry Yorke, Andy Young

GE

TTY

S1 JANUARY 11 • 2015 The Mail on Sunday 5

...and husband’s bloody journey from Finsbury Park mentor to death at deli

Juvisy, he first came to police atten-tion as a 17-year-old. Convictions for theft and drug offences followed and he was arrested for an attempted armed robbery on a bank in Orleans in September 2002.

Boumeddiene, who was never seen in public without her veil, waited

four years for Coulibaly to come out of jail after his conviction for armed robbery.

She met the younger of the Kouachi brothers, Cherif, at a time when the pair were linked with a jihadist recruitment ring that sent fighters to Iraq. Cherif was convicted in 2008

and sentenced to three years in jail, with 18 months suspended, for his association with the underground organisation. He had wanted to fly to Iraq via Syria and was found with a manual for a Kalashnikov – the automatic weapon used in last week’s outrages.

WILLING CONSPIRATOR: Coulibaly, left, with his jihadi mentor Djamel Beghal, an Al Qaeda follower who was radicalised at Finsbury Park in London. Coulibaly and Hayat Boumeddiene visited Beghal in rural France in 2010

Hero who died tackling deli terrorist with his own gun – and the Muslim who led Jewish shoppers to safety

TAKING AIM: Boumeddiene and Coulibaly on another break in 2010 – but this time to meet his terror mentor Djamel Beghal in rural France, where they both learned how to use a crossbow

SHADOW OF DEATH: A figure, thought to be Coulibaly, is silhouetted, top, making a dash for the glass doors of the deli where he held shoppers hostage – straight towards a pistol aimed at him by one of the armed officers waiting outside

DOWNED: The terrorist lies dead, right, in a pool of bloodE

PA

S1