A hostage has described hearing Man Haron Monis order someone to their knees and then “a very dire, sad, frightened last cry for help” before Tori Johnson was shot in the final minutes of the Lindt cafe siege.
Selina Win Pe told the coronial inquest into the December 2014 standoff that around 2am Monis had rushed “in a panic” from the view of police snipers after discovering six more hostages had fled the cafe.
“I heard him yell to someone ‘down, down, get down on your knees’,” she said. “A strong, deep Australian voice [said] ‘oh my God’.”
A shotgun blast followed.
The voice was “absolutely fearful … a this is it, very dire, sad, frightened last cry for help,” she said.
It is believed Johnson, the manager of the cafe, was the last man left in the building other than Monis. The inquest has previously heard he was shot at point-blank range by the gunman.
Win Pe said shortly after the gun blast there was “a ruckus outside, and I thought, now, now, come in now. And then things started flashing.
“There was so much light and banging, there was screaming from outside”.
She said she had fallen near the fire door of the cafe and stayed prone, thinking “please kill him, please kill him”, in reference to Monis.
The self-styled cleric was killed by police in the subsequent raid around 2:14am. Another hostage, barrister Katrina Dawson, was accidentally shot and died.
Win Pe, a former bank employee, was one of the hostages Monis forced to speak with television and radio producers and police negotiators on his behalf. She said she felt a consistent “lack of urgency, lack of understanding” from police and that the 18 hostages had been “isolated completely, left to die”.
She said Monis kept asking the hostages whether they would vote for Tony Abbott, the then prime minister who Monis had unsuccessfully been trying to “debate” live on air.
“He said ‘look I have fed you, allowed you to go to the toilet, been nice to you. [Abbott] hasn’t done anything for you, would you vote for him?’” she recalled.
“And what are you going to say? I said, no he will not have my vote.”
Another of the gunman’s demands, to switch off a blue light outside the cafe, was also denied because Sydney city council regulations stipulated the light should remain on until 8am, she said.
The experience of the siege had left her with “extremes of post-traumatic syndrome”.
“I have not returned to my previous capacity, nor will I,” she said. “I am diagnosed with hyper anxiety, depression, hyper paranoia, vigilance to the extremes.
“I have had to relearn at the ages of 43 and 44 to renormalise and reprogram that I’m no longer in that cafe,” she said.
“It was the most soul-destroying experience, given the particular attention [Monis] preyed on me.”
The inquest continues.
