Hostages killed are named as Yoav Hattab, 21, Yohan Cohen, 22, Philippe Braham. Photo / Facebook
Hostages killed are named as Yoav Hattab, 21, Yohan Cohen, 22, Philippe Braham. Photo / Facebook
The first pictures of three of the four hostages killed in yesterday's kosher supermarket siege in Paris have emerged.
Yohan Cohen, 22, Yoav Hattab, 21 and Philippe Braham, in his forties, have been pictured 24 hours after the siege came to a climax as armed police raided the Jewish grocery.
François-Michel Saada, thought to be in his sixties, was also murdered in the attack, French Jewish organisation Crif confirmed.
All four men were murdered by Islamic terrorist Amedy Coulibaly, including one who is said to have snatched one of the extremist's guns and turned it on the hostage taker - only to find that the weapon had jammed.
Philippe Braham was a teacher in his early 40s, who lived with his wife Valerie and their three children in a quiet town called L'Hay-les-Roses, approximately eight miles south of Paris.
A neighbour described him as "a good man" and added: 'He always said hello, he was always very polite. They are a very nice and quiet family. He didn't speak a lot, but he was a good man.
"This is very sad news. It is a sad day for the family and for everyone." It is believed Braham has another elder child from a previous relationship.
The dramatic account was revealed by a survivor who fled the shoot-out as armed police officers and soldiers raided the store yesterday.
Image 1 of 13: Police officers prepare to storm a kosher grocery. Photo / AP
Mickael B, as he wishes to be known, was held in the store with his three-year-old son when the fellow hostage suddenly grabbed the weapon which had been left on the counter and tried to fire it at terrorist Amedy Coulibaly.
But, after discovering the gun had been left there because it was malfunctioning, the extremist shot and killed the heroic hostage.
Giving a terrifying account, Mickael said: "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 what was happening."
"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.
"Five minutes later a store employee was sent down by the killer. She said he said we were to go back up otherwise there'd be carnage. I refused to go up.
"By now my son, understanding nothing, was panicking. Then 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 Amedi Coulibaly, Malian and Muslim. I belong to the Islamic State,' he told us.'
"Then he told us to put our phones on the ground. He walked around the store, armed, totally justifying himself, speaking of Palestine, French prisons, his brothers in Syria and many other things.
"Suddenly one of the customers tried to grab one of his guns which he'd left on the counter. It wasn't working. The terrorist had put it there because it had blocked after the first shots,' Mickael told Le Point.
"He turned and shot at the customer who died on the spot."
Mickael added: 'He then demanded that I call the media, which I did. From then on the phone in the store never stopped ringing. It was mainly journalists. I told them now was not the time. My son started to cry he wanted to go home. He said the terrorist was a bad man.
"I managed to get my phone out discreetly and got in touch with the police outside while the terrorist was roaming the aisles.
"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.
"My mobile was still on. The police had heard it all. Minutes later the shop grille was lifted. We knew it was the start of the assault.
"We flung ourselves to the ground. The noise was deafening. He was dead. It was over."
Sarcelles, the Parisian suburb Mr Cohen lived in, was in mourning this evening, with the town's deputy mayor Francois Pupponi saying his family were "devastated".
Mr Pupponi added: "He was a nice boy - I knew him and his friends by sight. This tragedy affects all of the city and the Jewish community."
The family are expected to receive the 22-year-old's body tomorrow or Monday.
Two sieges come to a violent, bloody end
Meanwhile dramatic footage has emerged of the moment police stormed in to the Paris kosher supermarket last night before terrorist Amedy Coulibaly was shot dead.
Commandos launched flash grenades into the grocery and fired into the shop before a man believed to be the hostage taker was gunned down. Moments later, terrified captives could be seen running to safety.
French police named the hostage taker as Amedy Coulibaly (left), 32, while also claiming a woman named Hayat Boumeddiene (right), 26, is involved. Photo / AP
It comes as it was revealed that the Isis fanatic had slaughtered four hostages before officers launched the raid.
Last night, chilling images emerged of bodies lying on the floor of the bullet-ridden shop after several shoppers were taken hostage inside the grocery store - including women and children. Further images emerged of Coulibaly's bloodied body lying on a pavement after the siege had come to a dramatic end.
It has also been revealed there were 500 calls made between the phone belonging to Coulibaly's wife Hayat Boumeddiene and a phone belonging to one of the wives of the Kouachi brothers.
Boumeddiene, France's most wanted woman, is now in Syria after crossing the Turkish border earlier this month.
A young Malian Muslim who was working in the supermarket when it was raided has hailed as a 'hero' after it was revealed that he led Jewish customers away from the terrorist to safety in the kosher store.
Questions were asked today of how the Charlie Hebdo shooters had been able to carry out the attacks. Both the Kouachi brothers are understood to have been on British and American terror watch lists.
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said: "There was a failing, of course. That's why we have to analyse what happened.
"They wanted to attack tolerance, the Jews of France once again. Four died yesterday and without the professionalism of forces that figure would have been much higher.
"We must never lower our guard. I am telling you this with a great deal of strength. We must carry on. We are doing our best, our utmost in order to fight against terrorism but there is always ways for terrorism to slip in.
"We have to be really strong, really tough as far as the enemies of freedom are concerned."
Referring to a unity rally being held tomorrow, he said: "It will be a rally which will be unbelievable and remain in the annals of history. It will shout and express its love and freedom and tolerance. Tomorrow's rally will be a cry for freedom."
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said authorities are "determined" to "take the necessary measures to be able to protect the country".
He said agencies are working to 'obtain intelligence from the investigations with regard to those who were the origin of these criminal acts".
Mr Cazeneuve said: "That's the case for terrorist acts but also for all the risks that the country is being confronted with, as for other countries in the European Union."
Amedy Coulibaly, who was killed in the raid, threatened to kill his hostages if police attempted to storm the Charlie Hebdo terrorists who, at the time, were engaged in a similar standoff with police.
In the hours after the dramatic raid on the store, an Israeli government official said 15 hostages were rescued while French president Francois Hollande confirmed that four people were killed.
Coulibaly was also responsible for the fatal shooting of a policewoman on Thursday. It has now been suggested this attack may have been an aborted attempt to attack a Jewish school.
Prosecutor Francois Molins also said that several people have been handed preliminary charges in the investigation following the three-day rampage that has terrified France. They include family members of the three suspects, who were killed by police Friday.
He added that one of the two gunmen in the other standoff Friday was wounded in the throat in a shootout with police before being killed later in the day.
One woman who visited the Kosher shop described its manager Michel Emsalem as a "kind" and "patient" man.
Latifa Benjamaa, 37, said: 'He is kind, nice and polite. He is not someone who cares about religion. I often went to shop there and I'm a Muslim,' she said.
While it remained unclear whether the manager was involved in the incident, she added: 'This has nothing to do with religion. You are not allowed to kill in my religion. These men had an objective. These people are not doing this for Allah.'
Mrs Benjamaa said she feared people would begin rioting in the street.
She said: 'Now they are going to be repercussions. There will be war on the streets. Everyone is going to fear everyone. Before, things were fine.'
Earlier reports that there was a serious incident developing near the Trocadero in central Paris were incorrect - it remains open and running after what was a false alarm.
The siege at the grocery store occurred after the Charlie Hebdo killers in Dammartin-en-Goele found themselves holed up with a hostage at a business premises further north - and were believed to have made contact with an associate.
Police officers next to a body lying in the kosher market. Photo / AP
Police immediately scrambled phone signals in the area - but not before the killers were able to make their call.
It was feared that Said Kouachi and his brother Cherif contacted Amedy Coulibaly - and possibly ordered him to take hostages in a bid to force police to allow them to escape.
Strong links between the Kouachi brothers and Coulibaly continue to emerge - including the phone calls between one of the Kouachi's wife and Coulibaly's wife Hayat Boumeddiene, revealed by Mr Molins on Friday.
Police were today interrogating the wives of the Kouachi brothers in a bid to track down Hayat Boumeddiene - who is now France's most wanted woman.
Boumeddiene, described as armed and dangerous, has been on the run since the slaying of rookie policewoman, Clarissa Jean-Phillipe, by Coulibaly.
Hundreds of phone calls between Boumeddiene and Izzana Hamyd, wife of Cherif Kouachi, have shown up on mobile records. Five hundred in all were made last year.
Also being held is the wife or girlfriend of the older Kouachi brother, Said.
French Algerian Boumeddiene is now not thought to have been with Coulibaly at any time in the Kosher Supermarket and to have fled immediately after the killing.
Cherif and Coulibaly were both part of the Buttes Chaumont gang - a group of extremists who came together in the early 2000s - and were both implicated in a plot to free jailed Islamist Smaïn Aït Ali Belkacem in 2010.
As the two sieges by suspected Islamic terrorists yesterday played out at the same time, fears grew that the jihadis were looking to cause another bloodbath.
Clarissa Jean-Philippe, 27, was unarmed and directing traffic in Montrouge, in south Paris, when she was gunned down by Coulibay on Thursday.
Two of Coulibaly's relatives were arrested in nearby Grigny during a police raid this morning.
Like the Kouachi brothers, he is known to have been radicalised by an Islamic preacher in Paris, before expressing a wish to fight in Iraq or Syria. Both Said Kouachi, 34, and his brother, Cherif Kouachi, 33, were first arrested in 2005.
They were suspected members of the Buttes Chaumont - a group operating out of the 19th arrondissement of Paris and sending terrorist fighters to Iraq.
Cherif was convicted in 2008 to three years in prison, with 18 months suspended, for his association with the underground organisation.
He had wanted to fly to Iraq via Syria, and was found with a manual for a Kalashnikov - the automatic weapon used in Wednesday's attack.
Said was freed after questioning by police, but - like his brother - was known to have been radicalised after the Iraq War of 2003, when Anglo-American forces deposed Saddam Hussein.
Both brothers were said to be infuriated by the killing of Muslims by western soldiers and war planes.
Vincent Olliviers, Cherif's lawyer at the time, described him as initially being an "apprentice loser - a delivery boy in a cap who smoked hashish and delivered pizzas to buy his drugs".
But Mr Ollivier said the "clueless kid who did not know what to do with his life met people who gave him the feeling of being important".
After his short prison sentence, Cherif was in 2010 linked with a plot to free Smain Ait Ali Belkacem, the mastermind of the1995 bombing of the St Michel metro station in Paris that killed eight people and wounded more than 100 more.
Belkacem was a leading members of the GIA, or Armed Islamic Army - an Algerian terror outfit responsible for numerous atrocities.
Who are the the Kouachi Brothers?
The Kouachi brothers, who are orphans, were radicalised by an Iman operating in northern Paris.
They were raised in foster care in Rennes, in western France, with Cherif training as a fitness instructor before moving to Paris.
Suspects: The three men were named as Cherif Kouachi (left), 32, his brother Said Kouachi (right), 34, and Hamyd Mourad, 18, of Gennevilliers. Photo / AP
They lived in the 19th arrondissement and were radicalised by Farid Benyettou, a janitor-turned-preacher who gave sermons calling for jihad in Iraq and suicide bombings.
His Buttes-Chaumont recruitment group, named after a Paris park, sent at least a dozen young men to fight in Iraq.
The Kouachis share similar backgrounds to Mohammed Merah, the 23-year-old French Algerian responsible for murdering seven people, including four Jews and three Muslim soldiers, in the Toulouse area in 2012.
Merah, who was himself shot dead by police, had also been left to operate as a terrorist in France, despite the authorities knowing he had trained with Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
Last year Mehdi Nemmouche, a 29-year-old French Algerian, was arrested in Marseille in connection with an attack on the Jewish Museum in Brussels which left four people dead. He denies any crimes, and is currently on remand in Belgium.
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