1. Sydney siege: “Get out tonight or we die”
The hostages held by gunman Man Haron Monis have told of how they had two scenarios facing them during that long night at the Lindt Café.
Get out or be “dead by the morning’’.
The mother of Lindt staff member Joel Herat has said “Joel said to us ‘Mum If we didn’t get out now, we were going to die.’ The terrorist said to them ‘it will be in the morning’. And they said, ‘no we’re going to get out now’.”
News Limited reports that the hostages made a break for it at 2am when Monis started getting sleepy they ran for the side door smashing the lock off and escaped into the night.
Fairfax Media has an interview with the father of Joel Heart who says the report the gunman was getting sleepy is wrong. He claims that Monis was getting agitated around 2am.
“From what Joel told me initially, towards 2am Monis started to bring groups of people together in close proximity from where they had been dispersed throughout [the cafe]”, Mr Herat told Fairfax Media.
“And at that point in time, Joel and five others came to the conclusion that they were not going to survive until the morning if they did not do something. So I think him and Jarrod [19-year-old Jarrod Hoffman] basically came to the conclusion that they would bust down the door. And I know that Joel made sure that Harriette [Denny] … got behind him and he said, ‘You’re coming with me’, and basically made sure that all that group were ready to go when Joel and Jarrod broke down the door, it was a group of six in total, I’m not sure who the others were.”
“I don’t know how they did it but they did kick down the [internal] door, which leads to the barristers’ chambers, and then the moment they busted that door down, Joel heard shots in his proximity. And he made sure that Harriette got out and Jarrod got out .. there were shots as they were fleeing.”
“It had to be immediate, no opportunity to look back or anything like that, they just had to take their opportunity,” his father said.
2. Sydney siege: Gunman shot Katrina Dawson and Tori Johnson
News Limited reports that an initial post-mortem carried out on Tori Johnson and Katrina Dawson show that Man Haron Monis executed Tori Johnson and shot Katrina Dawson who later died of a heart attack.
At this stage the initial investigation is believed to have shown that Mr Johnson had already been hit with a gunshot to the head before police shot Monis multiple times.
Details of Man Haron Monis’s post-mortem are expected to be known by Friday.
Police have said they did not yet have an official cause of death for any of the victims and would not be commenting until the investigation was over.