ONE of the hostages killed during the Sydney siege died after being hit by fragments of police bullets fired after officers stormed the Lindt Cafe targeting the gunman, Man Haron Monis, an inquest has heard.

The NSW Coronial inquest into the deaths of two hostages, cafe manager Tori Johnson and mother-of-three Katrina Dawson, as well as Monis himself, opened this morning in Sydney.

Counsel assisting the coroner, Jeremy Gormley SC, said Johnson was killed by Monis, who forced him to kneel on the cafe floor before shooting him without warning.

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Police officers from the force’s Tactical Operations Unit then stormed the building, with two members of the team firing a total of 22 bullets at Monis, who died as a result, Mr Gormley said.

“Ms Dawson was struck by six fragments of a police bullet or bullets, which ricocheted from hard surfaces into her body ... one bullet struck a major blood vessel, she lost consciousness and died shortly afterwards,” he said.

Monis fired five shots from a pump-action shotgun that he smuggled into the cafe inside a bag, the inquest heard.

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Man Haron Monis, pictured in 2011.

“No shot fired by Mr Monis, other than the one that struck and killed Mr Johnson, struck anyone,” Mr Gormley said.

The inquest, which will run over coming months, will include an examination of the police management of the siege, with a team of British police officers brought in to conduct an independent review of what took place.

“Questions concerning the use of police marksmen, whether to wait or act immediately, have been discussed in public. I anticipate evidence on all of these matters. If there were defects in the management of the siege, they will be exposed,” Mr Gormley said.

There was a huge outpouring of emotion following the deaths of Katrina Dawson and Tori Johnson.

‘THIS IS AN ATTACK, I HAVE A BOMB’

Monis arrived at the cafe in camouflage long pants and baseball cap, with a large black backpack and carrying a blue plastic bag. He was also carrying a sawn-off shotgun.

After ordering a dessert, he stood up, got the doors to be locked and said “this is an attack, I have a bomb”.

“He ordered hostages to hold a flag”, which was described as being an Islamic-type flag.

At 9.44am, at the request of Monis, Tori Johnson placed a Triple-0 call and he was told to say that Australia was under attack from Islamic State.

Monis told hostages that he had a bomb in his backpack and didn’t remove it for the entire ordeal.

After his death, it was found that the bridge of his shotgun was open, seeming to indicate he was trying to reload before his death.

NO CCTV IN CAFE

The inquest has heard there was no CCTV inside the Lindt Cafe during the siege but there were “surprising levels of electronic sound recording.

Man Haron Monis fired five shots from a sawn-off shotgun, the inquest hears. How Monis came to be on bail will also be examined, as will the police management of the scene.

Counsel assisting the coroner, Jeremy Gormly SC, says every bullet fired by Monis and police is likely to be accounted for.

The inquest has also heard that Monis had not made contact with Islamic State before the siege, although someone from Islamic State endorsed him after his death.

The handling of the siege by NSW police would be analysed.

The coroner has arranged for an independent critical assessment of the police effort by UK police experts.

They will be assisted by interstate police providing insight into the domestic context.

Evidence is likely to be heard on questions surrounding the use of police marksmen and whether they should have acted early or not. “If there were defects in the management of the siege, they will be exposed,” Mr Gormly said.

The inquest will also probe how the police managed communications with families of the hostages during the siege. The investigation will shift film, sound recordings, texts, Facebook pages and other social media, CCTV footage, emails and more than 300,000 phone calls.

“For an event that took only 17 hours, there has resulted in what has been described to me as hundreds of hours of material,” Mr Gormly said.

Heavily armed tactical response officers on the scene during the first few hours of the siege.

DETAILED AND COMPREHENSIVE PICTURE

In his opening address, counsel Mr Gormly said that by the end of the inquiry, there should be a “high level” of information about what happened on December 15 last year.

“We will most likely have a detailed and comprehensive picture of the siege,” he said.

He said the inquest will look at what happened and why, and whether it could have been avoided.

It will also examine whether it had community implications.

“In this case, as in most cases, some facts are not contentious,” he said, adding the time and place of deaths is known.

“What needs full examination is manner and cause of each of the deaths of Ms Dawson and Mr Johnson.” Mr Gormly said a lot of the information will come from the hostages, who had gone through an unimaginable experience.

“They are our eyes and ears and memory,” he said.

POLICE OFFICERS ASK TO KEEP IDENTITIES HIDDEN

Two NSW Police officers from the team that stormed the Lindt Cafe, bringing to an end last month’s Sydney siege and killed the gunman Man Haron Monis, have asked the state coroner to keep their identities secret during the inquest.

Several officers from the force’s Tactical Operations Unit stormed the central Sydney building in the early hours of December 16 after a lonegunman, Man Haron Monis, took 18 people hostage the morning before.

The police force has asked that two of the police officers involved, who were both marksmen, be known only during the names Officer A and Officer B.

Three people, including Monis, were killed during the siege, which was brought to an end by the police operation shortly after 2am.

Two of the hostages, cafe manager Tori Johnson and mother-of-three Katrina Dawson were also killed, while three other hostages and a police officer were also injured during the police raid.

Several of Johnson’s family and one of the hostages, John O’Brien are among those who will watch the inquest open today. Held before NSW Coroner Michael Barnes, the public hearing will attempt to establish the cause of each of the three deaths.

The inquiry is running in tandem with a Critical Incident investigation being led by detectives from the NSW Police Homicide Squad and is expected to take several months.

A separate federal government inquiry into Monis, a self-declared Islamic scholar and acolyte of the Islamic State terrorist group, and his past interactions with the security services is expected to report soon.

With AAP