Lindt siege inquest: I thought the police would let us die, says hostage
LINDT Cafe siege hostage says police negotiators had “left us here to die” after failing to provide gunman Man Monis with an Islamic State flag.
NSW
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LINDT Cafe siege hostage Marcia Mikhael believed police negotiators had “done nothing” and “left us here to die” after failing to provide gunman Man Monis with an Islamic State flag and a phone call with former prime minister Tony Abbott.
Hours later, tactical police carried the mother of three over Monis’ body, her ordeal finally over.
“His head was half blown out,” Ms Mikhael said of her final memory of the deadly December 2014 siege.
During her evidence at the inquest into the siege, Ms Mikhael said she “lost the plot” at negotiators when talking to them on the phone at Monis’s demand.
“When you are under pressure and think you are going to die ... I couldn’t see why it was so difficult to get a flag (the Islamic State one Monis requested) or why it is so difficult for the prime minister to get on the phone,” the Westpac project manager told the inquest. Ms Mikhael, who was inside the Martin Place cafe when police stormed in after Monis shot manager Tori Johnson dead, was ordered to ring radio station 2GB during the 17-hour siege and then told the call would be transferred to the police — prompting her anger that nothing was being done to resolve the crisis.
“The police ... have lied to the media all day saying they’ve been negotiating with Monis ... they’ve not negotiated, they’ve done nothing. They have left us here to die,” she told the person on the other end of the phone.
She recalled the fury she felt during another call with a police negotiator, when told Mr Abbott was “a very busy man” who didn’t have time to take the call.
“You don’t say that to someone who has a gun pointed at their head ... like I am a piece of nothing and I am going to die and no one cares,” she said.
Ms Mikhael was carried out of the cafe by two officers after her legs were injured when police stormed in and a hail of bullets sprayed over the cafe, with the fragments of one striking barrister Katrina Dawson, killing her.
Hostage Harriette Denny, in the early stages of pregnancy during the siege, said she “instinctively ran” when her cafe colleague Jarrod Morton Hoffman opened the door and signalled to her to escape.
Ms Denny, who was the barista at the cafe and a friend of Mr Johnson’s, said she was told shortly after her escape that “everyone was out”.
“Police reassured me, I thought everyone was out alive and I was pretty happy,” she said.
The 31-year-old began to cry when she said “it was about an hour” before she learned of the deaths.
The inquest continues today before State Coroner Michael Barnes.
RELATED ARTICLES: MARTIN PLACE SIEGE
• As it happened: How the siege unfolded
• Gunman among three dead as gunfight brings an end to siege
• Hostage down! Moment police stormed cafe
• Identifying the hostages of the siege
• Sydney siege hostage Marcia Mikhael
• Flower tributes at Martin Place
• Hero Lindt cafe manager Tori Johnson ‘was an amazing person’
• Katrina Dawson was a barrister, friend, colleague and mother of three
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