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Paris kosher store worker recounts terrorist siege and murders

At the trial in Paris of 14 people accused of aiding the January 2015 terrorist attacks in the capital, Zarie Sibony, 28, gave a harrowing account of the four-hour siege at the kosher store where she worked as a cashier, when Amédy Coulibaly murdered four hostages and, she recalled, told his captives 'You are Jews and French, the two things I hate the most'.

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A supermarket cashier described how she spent a terrifying four hours waiting to be killed after a terrorist shot a colleague and three customers and took 17 people hostage, reports The Guardian.

Zarie Sibony, 28, gave a chilling account of how Amédy Coulibaly launched into an antisemitic diatribe after laying siege to the Hyper Cacher shop in southern Paris in January 2015.

Coulibaly was in contact with brothers Saïd and Chérif Kouachi who had killed 12 people in an attack on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo two days earlier.

Sibony told a court in Paris she recalled “putting a packet of frozen chicken through” at the till when the gunman entered the supermarket around 1pm and shot colleague Yohan Cohen, 20, and sales executive Philippe Braham, 45.

She hid under the checkout but found herself face to face with the gunman.

“I was sitting on the floor and he was there in front of me with his arms, two Kalashnikov, one in each hand, and he said a phrase that I will never forget: ‘You, you’re not yet dead. You don’t want to die?’ and he fired. I saw the impact of the bullet in my till and I understood that I had almost died. I still don’t understand how he missed me when I was in front of him,” Sibony said.

Thinking Coulibaly was a robber, Sibony said she offered the gunman money to which he replied: “You think I’m doing this for money? The Kouachi brothers and I are part of the same group. You Jews, you like life too much when what’s important is death. I’m here to die. You are Jews and French, the two things I hate the most.”

Read more of this report from The Guardian.