Coulibaly ‘wanted to go out with guns blazing’

LONDON — When the French police stormed the Paris kosher supermarket last Friday to end the siege in one of the country’s worst militant attacks in decades, their initial plan was to take jihadi gunman Amedy Coulibaly alive. But on observing his behaviour, the police realised that he wanted to die in a shoot-out with them.

Members of France’s special forces have recounted the events of Friday afternoon — telling how Coulibaly attempted to barter to free the hostages and how they eventually stormed the store and killed him.

Coulibaly, 32, had placed shopping trolleys in the doorway, which impeded the entry of the special forces.

“Then he threw himself at us,” said one of the special forces officers, named only as Stan in a Le Parisien report, who was involved in the assault. Coulibaly was met with fire from the police, ending up with at least 40 bullets in his body.

Coulibaly had walked into the Jewish supermarket at 1pm on Friday, killing four people inside and taking 17 hostage.

He was a close associate of the Kouachi brothers, who were behind last Wednesday’s attack on the satirical Charlie Hebdo newspaper.

At the time, the brothers were besieged in a factory in Dammartin-en-Goele, 32km to the north-east of Vincennes.

Mr Stan said they were initially told there were five hostages inside, but that figure could not be confirmed.

“We had managed to make telephone contact with one of the clients who was hiding in the cold store in the basement. They told us that there was a one-month-old baby inside that room. The baby would have survived for only two hours inside there. But we were able to cut the electricity.”

It was this response which probably saved the life of 20-year-old Belgian Sarah Bitton’s baby. Ms Bitton and her baby were among several who had taken cover in the freezer in the basement of the Hyper Cacher supermarket.

Above them, Coulibaly had pulled down the shutters around the shop, but the police realised it was possible to see inside. Six hostages were on the ground floor.

“Our snipers could not risk taking a shot at him, because there were advertising posters all over the windows and it was impossible to get a clean shot,” said Mr Stan.

Mr Jean-Pierre, another member of the police raid team, said the end of both siege situations — in the Vincennes supermarket and 45 minutes away at the print works in Dammartin-en-Goele — was planned to take place at the same time, just before nightfall.

But in the end, the Kouachi brothers decided to come out at around 5pm — at the same time that Coulibaly was praying — and so both operations begun at the same time anyway, regardless of the plan.

Two sticks of explosives had been placed on the door of the supermarket, ready for the team to blow their way in.

“The terrorist immediately opened fire on us,” said Mr Stan. “He shot at us with his Kalashnikov. Then, he retreated into the shop.”

Mr Stan thought Coulibaly had gone back in to kill the hostages.

A third member of the team, Mr Marc, told Le Parisien that they faced a “hail of bullets” from Coulibaly. “In front of us we had a man, ultra precise, well trained, who knew how to work his AK-47,” he said.

The special forces found that Coulibaly had booby-trapped the store, leaving a door packed with several kilograms of explosives. They also found that he had with him a stockpile of ammunition, sub-machine guns and automatic weapons.

“The hostages all thanked us,” said Mr Jean-Pierre. “Some of my colleagues had tears in their eyes.”