This Muslim Man Saved Several Hostages During The Paris Kosher Market Siege

Lassana Bathily is a 24-year-old Muslim shop assistant at the Hyper Cacher kosher supermarket in Porte de Vincennes, Paris. Bathily, who is originally from Mali, was in the store last Friday when terrorist Amedy Coulibaly — who pledged allegiance to ISIS and who officials say was connected to the two Charlie Hebdo shooters — stormed in and opened fire. The militant killed several customers and began taking hostages.
But as chaos and fear gripped the shop, Bathily reacted quickly to help keep people safe. According to French news outlets, he ushered several frightened customers into a cold storage room and closed the door, shielding them from the attacker.
“When they came running down I opened the door of the fridge,” he said, according to The Guardian. “Several came in with me. I turned off the light and the fridge. When I turned off the cold, I put them in. I closed the door. I told them to stay calm and I said ‘you stay quiet there, I’m going back out’.”
Bathily then discretely escaped the shop through the goods lift. He was promptly arrested by the robust police force that had surrounded the store, as he was suspected of being a co-conspirator with the terrorists. He was eventually freed, however, and gave police details about the layout of the store and where people were hiding. He also reportedly gave officers a key to the door, which allowed them to storm the store without having to burst through the shutters.
Later, after the siege ended and the gunman was killed, several of the former hostages Bathily shepherded into the cold storage room approached him and shook his hand, thanking him.
When interviewed about the experience on BFMTV, he calmly rejected the same religious hatred that the terrorists embraced, saying, “We are brothers. It’s not a question of Jews, of Christians or of Muslims. We’re all in the same boat, we have to help each other to get out of this crisis.”
Many people have since taken to social media to herald Bathily as a hero, with one even calling him a Mensch, a yiddish term for a person of honor and integrity.