Five months after the Hyper Cacher hostage taking by Amedy Coulibaly, Lib'eration (a French newspaper) interview hostages who were hidden in a cold storage of the store's basement.
Aged between 27 and 52, they are nurse, plumber, commercial employee, housewife they had never meet each others. The 9 january 2015, Sandra, Yohann, Jean-luc and Emilie (1) spent four hours together in the cold storage with another two hostages and a baby barricaded behind a frail door and cartons where they could heard steps and gunshots of the killer : Amedy Coulibaly.
They reunite for the first time and speak to Lib'eration because they think some medias rearrange facts.
Sandra was waiting in the cashier queue when she heard what she believed to be "fireworks", then screams. Emilie, 27, thought it was an explosion or a car accident and few seconds later a crowd ran and shout "He's armed !". Sandra saw Coulibaly : "He had a camo bulletproof vest and no balaclava". Jean-luc, 52, turns his head : "He fired and two men fell". The terrorist just killed two customers : Philippe Braham and Francois-Michel Saada before he entered he also killed Yoan Cohen, a Hyper Cacher employee.
Jean-luc ran in the store and discovered a door that lead to a spiral staircase, Sandra, Emilie and a roughly thirty people followed. The staircase lead to the basement where there is a storage and two little cold storages. Yohann, 38, tried to open an emergency exit door with the help of another man : "We were two, we kicked the door with ours shoulders, it was impossible because the door was closed by two padlocks and an iron bar". So they followed the others to the basement.
Down, they panicked and tried to find an exit but there is none. Some of them enter a cold storage, Jean-luc hide under the staircase and Yohann was optimistic by thinking "It's probably a robbery he'll take the cash and leave, in five minutes it's all over". Sandra thought : "He killed people, I immediately make the relation with Charlie Hebdo in Dammartin. We all gonna die".
Few minutes later a cashier came down, sent by Coulibaly : "She tells he wants us to go up or he'll kill everybody up there and go down finish us" say Jean-luc. Few people followed her.
Lassana Bathily who was already in the basement when the attack occurs saw the refugees and ask them what happen. He proposed them to follow him in the lift that lead to an exit on the upper floor. Yohann thinked it was too risky because he failed to open the emergency exit and the killer was up there. Jean-luc : "It's true he proposed that, but all think we gonna die : the lift was too noisy and too small for all of us". Lassana Bathily let them and escape alone.
Amedy Coulibaly ordered a second time the cashier to come down and bring the remaining hostages. Jean-luc : "She was more pressant, a little group followed her of which a father and his three years old son. I hesitated". Suddenly they heard another two gunshots. Yoav Hattab, son of Tunis Rabbi, who just go up took one of the two terrorist's Kalachnikovs but the weapon jammed. Coulibaly executed him. Jean-luc knows now he won't move : "In my head all become clear : we gonna die, ok, but he must pick us up. We're not going face our death". Few moment after a customer come down, everybody was silent. Later they learn that this customer told Coulibaly there is no more hostages in the basement.
Jean-luc joined Emilie, Sandra, Yohann, a man and a woman with a baby in one of the two cold storage. Women want to close the door but in first time men were against this idea "The baby was ten months old and it was very cold, like -3 or -4^0C (26^0F), I was affraid he didn't survive" said Yohann. Sandra succesfully call the police with her smartphone they tell them to cloister themselves. Yohann : "I tear off all electric cables to stop the freezing, light off and search the keys." He find three keys and lock the cold storage.
They used cartons to protect themselves from the cold, the room is four square meters (13 feet square). The first hour, Jean-luc tell the group to be quiet and keep on their knees : "If he go down and fire a burst it'll be certainly at chest high". But soon they had cramps, the baby was agitating, they talked and Yohann make some jokes to clear the tension. They played with the baby to prevent any cry, her mother breastfed him.
Sandra received messages on her smartphone, her family alert her to not going in Hyper Cacher store : too late. At 16h (4pm) the battery was dead, no more reassuring messages from police, her husband, her family. Jean-luc : "We had several phases : at first we were terrorized, after we were optimistic we though if he didn't came down it was because he was alone. But after that we were worried, it was too long, we were cold, the baby was in bad condition and we learned that Coulibaly was linked to the Kouachi brothers. So, it would be like Charlie". Emilie call her parents, brothers and sisters to say goodbye. Jean-luc didn't have the force to answer to his wife.
16h30 (4h30pm) Yohann and Emilie's smartphones blinked. Police tell them the assault is imminent. One advice : hide in the back of the room. Half an hour passed and still nothing, suddenly a big din : explosions, gunshots, screams, the cold storage vibrated. "It was really violent" say Yohann. They heard loud steps coming from the staircase and the cold storage's door exploded. Jean-luc : "Several assault guns were aimed at us with red lasers on our chest, I think they want to be sure there is no hidden terrorist with us. I said we have a baby, we are hostages".
They escorted us to the exit and said to look straight. Sandra "We were walking on blood, everything was exploded, canned food, wine bottles, pieces everywhere, smoke and corpses".
Hostages we conducted to an head quarter in a bank where they found food, drinks and psychological support. After a medical exam and a police hearing they went home at midnight.
After that, they tried to resume a normal life. They w ere received at the Elysee except Jean-luc who wants to take distance with that event. No one, except Yohann for "les petits-fours" went to the ceremony in honnor of Lassana Bathily. "What happened on 7 and 9 January, it's so horrible that the media and politicians need to find a good story" say Sandra.
Lassana Bathily became a national hero, he was presenting as the black muslim who saved and protected jews.
The president of Mali, Ibrahim Boubacar Ke"ita, showed him "all his pride as a valiant Malian citizen".
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel prime minister, thanks him january 11 during his speech at the Great Synagogue in Paris.
The RAID's chief publicly commends the crucial role of Lassana Bathily.
16 January, the Secretary of State of the United States John Kerry met Lassana Bathily at Hyper Cacher store, he was honored for his speech and praised him in French.
President Obama paid tribute to him in these words : "The world knows that the Jews were attacked in a kosher supermarket in Paris. We must remember the employee of the supermarket, a Muslim, who hid Jewish customers and saved their lives. And when asked why he had done this, he replied: "We are brothers." We come from different countries, different cultures and different religions, but it is important to inspire heroic acts of this modest employee".
On February 23, 2015, during the 30th dinner of CRIF, Roger Cukierman gives him the price of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (Crif).
On March 24, 2015 in Los Angeles, Lassana Bathily receives the medal of courage Simon Wiesenthal Center.
A petition, launched on January 11 by Thiaba Bruni, the spokesman CRAN, has raised nearly 460,000 signatures. She asked to award French nationality and the Legion of Honor. Thursday, January 15 Francois Holland, President, personally called Lassana to announce that he will be naturalized. The interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, announced that Lassana Bathily will be well naturalized French.
Lassana Bathily was naturalized French Tuesday 20 january at 19h30 (7h30pm) by the interior minister, Bernard Caseneuve in the Ministry of Interior. The ceremony was live on TV. The Prime Minister, Manuel Valls, was present. He receives three symbols of French citizenship: a letter signed by the President of the Republic, a French passport and a medal.
He receives several proposals jobs, several prices and honor from numerous countries and makes speeches at differents Human Right associations.
(1) Modified first name
TL;DR :
Lassana Bathily is a false hero, he had done nothing he was just a coward who let men, women and a 10 months old baby in a basement of an under attack store.
sources :
http://www.liberation.fr/societe/2015/06/07/onvamourird-accordmais-qu-ilviennenouschercher_1324921
Hostages interview :
http://rutube.ru/video/057861534296a10153dc840dc38958fe/?ref=logo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TfFs6r05wA
↧