Sydney Siege: Mother Receives Text From Son Held Hostage Inside the Lindt Café

A mother has confirmed her son is trapped inside the Lindt chocolate café in Sydney where a hostage situation is currently taking place. The anguished mum, Mel, expressed her fears for her son after receiving a short text message from him.

Mel told Radio 2GB’s Ray Hadley that her son, who is an apprentice plumber, must have been in the café to get coffee that morning. By 3 pm, her fear was confirmed. She received a text from him that said, “Mum I’m in the Lindt café in Sydney.”

“My heart just dropped,” Mel told the radio presenter. “I sent him a text message saying, ‘What’s going on, are you OK?’ He said, ‘I’m OK mum, can’t talk.’” That was the last message she received from him.

Hadley claimed to have heard from another terrified hostage inside the café. He said that he had three phone conversations with the young man, who was given instruction by the gunman to talk to him on air. Hadley refused to put the conversation live, and instead related the discussion to his listeners.

According to the radio host, the hostage taker was trying to make his demands through the media. The gunman also made the same demand to several other news stations, but, like Hadley, they were not in the position to comply with a hostage taker’s request.

The young man Hadley had talked to informed him that some of the hostages have taken ill and need medical attention. Hadley added that he could hear the armed offender giving the hostage instructions on what to tell him.

“You have to deal with the negotiators. There are the police. They have to deal with him. The media can’t play a role in negotiating with people purporting to be from the Islamic state holding hostages at a café in Sydney. It is the job of the authorities to solve this problem,” Hadley told his listeners of his dialogue with the hostage.

The hostage-taking incident, now known in the media as Sydney Siege, started before 10 am when an armed man entered the Lindt café in Martin Place. A few hostages were seen holding a black flag in the café’s window. The flag has been identified as a Shahada flag, which reads “There is no go worthy of worship except Allah and Muhammad is his messenger.”

It is yet unknown how many hostages are inside the café, although five of them have emerged from the premises. New South Wales Deputy Police Commissioner Catherine Burn refused to say whether the hostages were released or had escaped. The police are already in contact with the gunman.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has earlier released a statement, calling Australians to go about their business as usual despite the “disturbing” incident.

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