The gunman knew his message was not getting out, and he grew suddenly more angry.

For hours he had roiled across the tiny cafe, erratic and unpredictable. Armed with a short-barrelled shotgun, he held his terrified captives beholden to his will.



Now, he saw that his dictated phone calls to media outlets weren’t being played live to air as he insisted, the videos he had forced his hostages to shoot weren’t being broadcast, and his inchoate demands weren’t being heard.



He turned his fury upon those he held captive.

“We’re not getting out of here,” one hostage said to another, “none of us are. We are going to die here.”

Inside the Lindt cafe

Guardian Australia has spoken with family members and friends of several of the hostages held by Man Haron Monis inside the Lindt cafe in Martin Place, in Sydney’s CBD.

Separately, they have described a terrifying and unpredictable 17-hour ordeal, where Monis forced hostages to film videos outlining his demands, and press-ganged cafe staff to act as his sentries, escorting customers to the toilet and back to the shop floor.

The first anybody in the Lindt cafe knew something was wrong was when the manager of shop recoiled in horror as Monis pointed a gun at him.

Previously, Monis had been seated, engaged in conversation with the manager, the unremarkable Monday-morning hubbub of the cafe all around them.

The bag he carried sat hidden at his feet. Customers paid scant attention.

Then, almost without warning, Monis was standing.

He drew a short-barrelled shotgun, and bellowed at customers to stand with their hands up.

He screamed at them that he was a representative of Islamic State and that this was a terrorist attack.

He told them there were bombs in the building, and that they must do as he instructed.

Monis locked the doors of the cafe and forced his hostages to stand still, their hands high in the air.

They stood in stunned silence, and stared at the man before them as he menaced them with a gun.

Almost immediately, the alarm was raised outside.

When a woman outside came to the automatic doors, banging on them to be let in, Monis waved the gun in her direction, a silent warning that no one was to come in.

Or out.

The woman alerted police, who quickly surrounded the building. Martin Place, busy for a year-end Monday morning, was hastily evacuated.

The first clue the wider world was given came shortly after 10am, when NSW police sent an anodyne tweet: “A police operation is underway in Martin Place, Sydney’s CBD. People are advised to avoid the area.”

Inside, Monis was spreading terror amongst his captives.

Some people screamed, while others burst into tears, sobbing uncontrollably. At least one hostage began to vomit in fear.

Having seized authority over those in the building, Monis then sought to take control of all communications coming out of it.

For years, he had railed against the injustices he perceived had been wrought against him.

No one had paid attention: not politicians, not the media, not the judges. He had written manifestos and letters, he had launched court challenges, and chained himself to parliament.

Now, finally, he had a platform to make people listen. And they would listen to his message only.

A black flag with white Arabic writing is held up at the window of the Lindt cafe during the siege in this still image taken from video from Australia’s Seven Network. Photograph: Reuters TV/Reuters

When a hostage’s phone rang and was answered, Monis screamed at them: “Drop that phone!”

Monis was the only person holding a weapon in the cafe. But he realised he could not, alone, keep control of 17 people.

“The gunman was surrounding himself with the staff from Lindt,” Guardian Australia has been told, “forcing them to stand near him, he was using them to control the social media, to get his message out. He was directing them on what to do, who to call, what to say.

“The other people, the older people, he pushed to the other side of the shop, he kept them there. “

Monis forced the cafe staff to act as his emissaries. He demanded they call newsrooms across Sydney, at 2GB, Nine, Seven and the ABC, to relay his demands.

The journalists who took the calls have reported being able to hear his commands barked in the background.

Monis had three simple demands. Based on the number of people standing before him, he had created a bartering system he felt would ensure outside acquiescence. His captives were his bargaining chips.

In exchange for an on-air live broadcast phone call with Tony Abbott, Monis was prepared to release five hostages.

In exchange for a public declaration from the government that his was an act of terror committed on behalf of Islamic State, he was prepared to release two more.

And for a black Islamic State flag he was prepared to release a final prisoner.

None of Monis’s demands were met. He let no one walk out.

Monis then forced his captives to appear in brief videos, designed for the widespread public dissemination of his demands.

The videos, posted online by several news websites and on YouTube (they were removed at 12.30am), offer an insight into the level of control Monis held over his hostages.

Monis chose four women to appear in his videos. Apparently at his direction, they each refer to him as “brother” or “our brother”.

The videos show them standing in a corner of the cafe, in a front of a man who is holding a black flag that carries the Islamic Shahada – the creed that states “there is no God but God, Muhammad is the messenger of God” – written in white calligraphic Arabic.

The women appear to be reading a statement, or bullet points of his demands, held just off-camera.

Behind the camera, a woman’s voice can be heard giving directions, such as “3-2-1”. It is not known who she is. She speaks confidently, but brusquely to those on-camera.

It is unclear how Monis filmed the videos. The quality of the footage is poor, and the sound is distorted in parts, but the camera is held steadily.

Some of those who have been forced to appear in front of Monis’s camera speak clearly and without hesitation. Others appear terrified, and nervously clench their fists.

Sydney lawyer Julie Taylor, who is pregnant, was one of those forced to appear on camera. She spoke quickly and surely.

“My name is Julie Taylor, I’m a barrister in Sydney, this is a message for Tony Abbott. We are here with … ummm … our brother, who has asked for three simple things, and the first is that Tony Abbott calls him, live in the media, to have a short conversation. If he does that five of us will be allowed to go. We can’t understand why that hasn’t happened.

“The second is that he wants the politicians to announce the truth which is that this is an attack by Islamic State on Australia. And if that’s done then two of us will be allowed to go.

“And the third is that he wants an Islamic State flag delivered to us here. And if you do that then one of us will be let go.” Taylor is cut off by the unseen woman’s voice: “OK, that’s it”.

On other videos, hostages state there are bombs in the building and planted at three other locations around Sydney’s CBD. One woman says “our Isis brother has been very fair to us”.

The videos were sent to media outlets. None put them to air while the siege was under way.

As the standoff dragged into the afternoon, Monis began to realise his message was not being heard.

A hostage runs from the Lindt Chocolate cafe in Martin Place on Monday after escaping out the fire door. Photograph: Joel Carrett/AAP

He grew even further distressed as he realised he was isolated, and running out of options.

“There was no reasoning with him, he was so angry,” one hostage, whose name Guardian Australia has chosen not to reveal, said. “He knew his message was not getting out, and he was getting angrier and angrier.”

There were moments, however, of calm and of conciliation. Hostages were allowed to take drinks of water, and one woman who had medication was given permission to take it.

When his captives asked to go to the toilet, Monis deputised a member of the cafe staff – themselves hostages – to escort them, and bring them back to the shop.

But as the afternoon dragged on, Monis, grew more erratic and unpredictable.

The extraordinary tension of being held at gunpoint strained hostages too.

Hostages began to plead with their captor. Some begged to be released, pleading to see their families. Monis refused.

But the gunman’s control began to fray.

Two men asked to go to the toilet, and, being escorted past the glass doors, asked the staff member pressed into being their sentry whether the green button at the base of the door would open it.

The staff member did not know. “I’ve only worked here for about a week.”

It was 3:37pm, and the siege had run nearly six hours. The men decided to take their chances.

As Monis was focused on speaking to the people nearest to him, they ran for the front door, and pushed at the button.

The doors slid open, and they sprinted to safety.

The Lindt employee escaped through a fire door nearby.

“If that door hadn’t opened, I felt sure I was going to be shot in the back,” one of the men reportedly said.

Two more Lindt employees would escape, also through the fire door, just after 5pm.

Monis, his bargaining power diminished and his options disappearing, grew increasingly agitated.

Through the glass windows of the cafe, police could see Monis shouting at the remaining hostages still trapped inside.

Siege in Martin Place, Sydney, on Monday evening: a woman inside the cafe moves to the door and turns off the lights. Photograph: Mike Bowers for The Guardian

Night fell, and the lights in the cafe were turned off.

But it would be hours still before those final chaotic moments, those ugly, necessary seconds that brought the terrifying ordeal to an end.

Details on the final minutes are confused and hazy, and police are still conducting interviews to piece together exactly what happened.

It has been reported that, as Monis grew weary, one or more of his hostages attempted to wrestle the gun from his control.

Police will only confirm they heard gunshots fired inside the building shortly after 2am, and immediately burst in through the doors.

Officers threw volley after volley of flash-bangs into the building, filling the cafe with disorienting light and smoke.

Throughout, augmenting the noise, was the unmistakable pop of gunfire.

Hostages began to pour out of the building, many with their hands cast in the air as they ran, anxious not to be mistaken for their captor.

Paramedic crews who had followed the police inside then brought out patients on stretchers, at least one receiving CPR.

When the smoke cleared, Monis lay dead.

But so too, did two of his victims, 38-year-old barrister Katrina Dawson, a mother of three, and 34-year-old Tori Johnson, the manager on duty who had been speaking with Monis just over 16 hours earlier on that unremarkable Monday morning.