Sydney: Survivors of a 16-hour siege in a Sydney cafe on Sunday told of their terror during the deadly standoff, as a jihadist gunman threatened to kill people "one by one".
Iranian-born, self-styled cleric Man Haron Monis, 50, held 17 people hostage at the Lindt chocolate cafe in the heart of the city's financial district on the morning of December 15 before being killed when police stormed the building in the early hours of the next day.
In emotional interviews, some of the surviving hostages told Channels Seven and Nine of how Monis forced them to call emergency services to tell them his demands, and how the gunman became more frustrated as night fell.
"I literally thought he was going to shoot us so that everybody can see through the window," survivor Harriette Denny told commercial broadcaster Channel Nine. "You lose hope, thinking about your family outside, thinking there's nothing you can do to get yourself out and it's very hard," said the 30-year-old, who was pregnant at the time of the hostage crisis.
The siege horrified Australia and prompted a mass outpouring of grief that saw thousands of flowers laid near the cafe in the city's Martin Place.
Survivor John O'Brien, 82, said Monis was "ranting and raving" about Prime Minister Tony Abbott and threatened to kill everyone in the cafe. "Tony Abbott wouldn't come to the phone, he said Tony Abbott will have all your blood on his hands when I kill you all, one by one," O'Brien told Channel Seven.
The interviews, for which channels Seven and Nine reportedly paid hundreds of thousands of dollars, came just over a week after an inquest opened into the siege.
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