Paris gunmen acted like they were on drugs, says Bataclan negotiator
Speaking to French magazine L’obs, the negotiator, named only as Pascal, described the gunmen as “nervous”, jittery” and “confused”.
He spoke to the gunmen five times over the phone in less than one hour, but knew after the second call that they were not going to give themselves up.
He described the conversations with Ismael Omar Mostefai and Samy Amimour at the Bataclan as like nothing he had ever known.
“They were very nervous, very jittery and confused, like under the influence of drugs,” he told L’obs.
“They kept repeating the same phrases: ‘We are the soldiers of the Caliphate. It is all Hollande’s fault. You attacked our women and children in Syria. We are defending ourselves by attacking the women and children in France.”
The hostage negotiator said he sat in in a van outside the theatre with a colleague and psychologist, trying to secure the release of people inside. But it became obvious the gunmen were not going to be taken alive and he informed the head of an elite French police unit which specialises in hostage situations, who was given the green light to move in.
It was earlier revealed that as the attackers mowed people down, a police commissioner and his driver, learning from the police radio that they were near the site, sped to the Bataclan before more elite teams could get there.
They charged inside, shooting one of the gunmen before the attacker had a chance to use his high-powered rifle. Then they retreated so that special-operations teams could assemble.
This action slowed the pace of carnage. “We saved dozens, maybe hundreds of lives,” the unnamed commissioner told M6 TV.
