Catalano gave an incredible account of the two terrifying hours he spent with Said and Cherif Kouachi as they made their final, bloody stand.
Factory boss Michel Catalano, who witnessed the last stand. Photo / AP
During the ordeal he made the brothers coffee and even dressed their wounds after they battled with police. Later the pair let him go free, shortly before they were cut down during an explosive raid by French commandos.
Catalano told how he turned up at his printworks as normal about 8am on Friday. Half an hour later, his employee Lilian Lepere, 27, arrived. It was then, through the door, that he spotted movement out of the corner of his eye.
"I could see that there was a man with a rocket launcher and a Kalashnikov and I could immediately see that we were in a situation of danger."
It was clear that these were the Kouachi brothers, and they were hunting for a hiding place. Within seconds, they were knocking at his door.
Turning to a terrified Lepere, the businessman told the graphic designer to hide at the back of the building.
"Then I turned back because I knew that the two of us couldn't hide ... and I must admit that I thought at that point that was the end, that was the end of it," he said.
Trembling, he walked to the front door where he knew the fugitives were waiting, expecting to be cut down by bullets.
Instead, he heard a calm, quiet voice saying: "Don't worry, we just want to come in."
The terrorists were sodden and exhausted from their days on the run. Earlier that morning they had hijacked a Peugeot 206 being driven by a woman teacher 50km northeast of Paris. Dozens of police cars had chased them along the N2 highway towards Paris. During the chase, shots were exchanged.
Scrambling out of the vehicle, the brothers decided on the printworks to make their final stand.
Catalano realised he had to keep the brothers from exploring the back of the office, where he knew his young employee was hiding. So he offered to make the exhausted pair a cup of coffee. Gratefully, the killers gulped down their hot drinks as their weapons hung loosely at their sides.
"They weren't aggressive," the businessman said.
Then, about 45 minutes later, there was another knock at the door. Looking out of the window, Catalano saw a salesman named Didier from one his suppliers, standing in the rain. Turning back to the terrorists, he told them the visitor had "nothing to do" with his business, and asked if he could be let go. To his surprise, the terrorists nodded their agreement, and one of the brothers walked with the businessman to the door.
Didier later told France Info radio: "When I arrived, my client came out with an armed man who said he was from the police. My client told me to leave so I left.
"I was in front of the door. I shook Michel's hand and I shook the hand of one of the terrorists."
He said the black-clad man, who was wearing a bullet-proof vest and carrying what looked like a Kalashnikov, told him: "Leave, we don't kill civilians anyhow."
"That really struck me, so I decided to call the police," Didier said. "I guess it was one of the terrorists."
The salesman later said: "I am going to buy a lottery ticket. This is the luckiest day of my life."
When the door closed again, the brothers seemed to decide they would never leave the printworks alive.
"They said that anyway it's going to finish there," Catalano said.
The pair even allowed the businessman to call police to say the terrorists had arrived, and were waiting for them.
Standing in the warehouse together, all three men knew the final battle would soon begin.
They had to wait only minutes. When the brothers saw the hundreds of gendarmes arriving, they fired a volley of shots from their Kalashnikovs.
A police commando takes up position on top of the factory building in Dammartin-en-Goele where the Kouachi brothers were cornered. Photo / AP
Catalano dived into his office, where he hid, expecting to die. When the firing stopped he heard footsteps and prayed it was the police.
Yet it was one of the brothers, calling politely: "Where are you sir? Where are you sir?"
"Don't worry, I'm here," the businessman replied, as his heart sank.
"I was just terrified that they were going to the end, as I didn't know where Lilian was hidden," he said.
Now the Kouachis knew the endgame had come; that they would soon attain the martyrdom they craved. Yet they were jumpy and clearly frightened by the prospect of death.
The tension unnerved Catalano, who noticed that blood was oozing from a cut on Said Kouachi's forehead.
"When I felt that one of them was tense, I said: "Look, if you want I could look after you," so he sat down and I helped him with a plaster."
The bandage was too tight, and the terrorist protested. So the businessman carefully wrapped it again, until Kouachi was comfortable.
At that point, after he had helped the pair, Catalano felt brave enough to ask if he could leave, before the police closed in.
"I felt that things could change at that point because I felt that they were certainly nervous," he said.
At first Said Kouachi refused to let him escape, replying, "Not immediately."
But after the businessman pleaded for a third time, the older brother relented, saying, "Go on."
Making his way to the door, Catalano wrestled with whether he should tell the brothers about Lilian, hiding only metres away. Perhaps they might let him go too.
"That was the most difficult thing for me." But he decided telling the terrorists could put the young man at more risk, and walked outside where the gendarmes were waiting.
"I don't know how I managed to stay calm," he said.
At about 5pm the police launched their assault on the building.
Dramatic footage showed flashes of light and rapid gunfire.
Minutes before the explosions, officers wearing balaclavas were seen moving towards the building.
After a short but intense battle, both Kouachi brothers lay dead.
The Graphic Designer
Lilian Lepere. Photo / AP
Police were fed intelligence about the gunmen's hideout in Dammartin-en-Goele by the graphic designer hiding under a sink.
Lilian Lepere remained hidden for the entire siege, which ended when the gunmen burst out of the building with guns blazing before being shot dead by police. The Kouachi brothers never knew he was there.
Lepere texted police tactical information from his hiding place in the upstairs canteen for seven hours.
A source said Lepere was terrified.
Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said he sent police "tactical elements such as his location inside the premises" as he listened to the gunmen talking.
When the siege started, Lepere sent a text message to his father asking him to get help.
"I am hidden on the first floor. I think they have killed everyone. Tell the police to intervene," he wrote.
Police drove an armoured car into the building to free Lepere.
The hostages and the store worker
Lassana Bathily. Photo / AP
As terror reigned inside the Hyper Cacher supermarket, one captive displayed astonishing courage by trying to tackle Amedy Coulibaly, the terrorist holding shoppers and store workers at gunpoint.
Coulibaly had left one of his weapons on a counter but remained armed.
One of the hostages, a customer at the kosher supermarket, made a grab for the gun, lifted it off the counter and aimed it at Coulibaly, whose back was turned.
What the hostage had not realised was that Coulibaly had discarded the firearm because it had stopped working.
The hostage squeezed the trigger but the gun jammed. Coulibaly turned and fired. The man died on the spot.
The victim was one of four people murdered in the Hyper Cacher by Coulibaly, a 32-year-old jihadist who had sworn allegiance to the Islamic State. The victims were named yesterday by the French Board of Jewish Deputies as Yoav Hattab, Philippe Braham, Yohan Cohen and Francois-Michel Saada.
A day earlier Coulibaly had killed a policewoman, laid low for 24 hours and then stormed the supermarket in Porte de Vincennes in the east of Paris. Details emerged last night through eyewitness accounts and through video and audio footage of the crisis.
One of the survivors, Mickael B, told how he had gone to the shops with his 3-year-old son for bread and kosher chicken when he became embroiled in the siege. He was later photographed clutching his son, fleeing from the supermarket at the end of the siege.
"I was heading for the check-out with the goods in my hand when I heard a bang - 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 something bad was happening," said Mickael B. "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 - our door wouldn't close. We were terrified."
They were led to the refuge by store worker Lassana Bathily, a 24-year-old Muslim from Mali. His actions saved many lives. Among the 15 or so hostages taken down the staircase were three children with their parents. "When they ran down, I opened the door [of the freezer]," said Bathily.
"There are several people who have come to me. I turned off the light, I turned off the freezer. I closed the door. I told them: 'Stay calm here. I'm going out'."
Using a goods lift Bathily escaped and was able to give the police valuable information about what was happening inside and where the hostages were hiding.
While about 15 survivors hid in the cold room next door, its door shut and the lights off, Mickael B and other captives were quickly discovered.
"A store employee was sent down by the killer. She said he had said we were to go back up otherwise there'd be carnage. I refused to go up," said Mickael B. "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, a man was dying in a pool of his own blood. The terrorist introduced himself to us. He was strangely calm. 'I am Amedy Coulibaly, Malian and Muslim. I belong to the Islamic State', he told us."
The hostages were ordered to put down their mobile phones. Each was made to state their name, profession and origin. Coulibaly then launched into a rant, justifying his actions in support of his "brothers" in Syria and in French prisons.
"Suddenly one of the customers tried to grab one of his guns which he'd left on the counter. The terrorist had put it there because it had blocked after the first shots," Mickael told Le Point magazine. "He turned and shot at the customer, who died on the spot."
Mickael was ordered by Coulibaly to switch on his phone and to call the media. Mickael B's son began crying, calling the terrorist a "bad man". After calls were made to the press - in one conversation Coulibaly confirmed he had killed a policewoman the previous day and admitted he was working with the brothers who had targeted Charlie Hebdo magazine - Mickael B switched his telephone back on and called police.
Downstairs in the cold room, hostages huddled in silence and in the dark, listening for telltale noises above.
Another parent with his child hiding in the cold room was a man identified only as Ilan. Ilan's mother realised her son and grandson were hidden and decided not to contact them. Instead she gave Ilan's mobile number to police, who were able to use it to track the location of the man, his son and the other hostages. According to Francois Molins, chief Paris prosecutor, this may have contributed to their survival when police stormed the store and killed Coulibaly.
Mickael B was by now in dialogue with police. "A policeman told me that we should be ready to throw ourselves flat on the ground when the assault came, which would be soon. 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."
Television footage broadcast by the French channel TV2 showed the metal shutters opening, flash grenades being thrown and a single, courageous policeman storming in.
A figure came charging out of the smoke-filled supermarket towards the entrance. At least one police officer raised his pistol and the man, presumed to be Coulibaly, collapsed.
"We flung ourselves to the ground," said Mickael B, "The noise was deafening. He was dead. It was over."
-Telegraph Group Ltd, Independent, Daily Mail
