THREE DEAD IN BLOODY END TO SYDNEY SIEGE: Two hostages die and Muslim extremist gunned down as police storm Martin Place café with assault rifles and stun grenades moments after people fled

• Tori Johnson, 34, and Katrina Dawson, 38, were killed during a terrorist siege at Sydney's Lindt cafe
• Mr Johnson, the cafe manager, heroically tried to wrestle the gun from the hostage-taker before he was shot dead
• Police stormed the cafe in central Sydney where a gunman held hostages for more than 16 hours
• Police moved in firing automatic weapons and throwing grenades as hostages were seen fleeing
• Male police officer was among those injured after he was wounded by a gunshot pellet to his face 
• Live TV footage showed hostages running frantically from the cafe at shortly after 2am in small groups 
• It came hours after Man Haron Monis was named as the gunman holding people hostage in a Sydney café
• Iranian refugee, 50, was charged with accessory in the murder of his ex-wife
• He was also facing multiple charges of sexual assault while claiming to be a 'spiritual healer' 
• Monis received 300 community service hours for sending hate mail to the families of Australian dead soldiers
• The siege follows an unsuccessful attempt to have these charges overturned in the High Court on Friday 
• He forced hostages to hold up a black flag with white writing in Arabic, an emblem linked to terror groups 

The two innocent victims tragically killed during a terrorist siege at a Sydney cafe have been named as cafe manager Tori Johnson and barrister Katrina Dawson.

Mr Johnson, 34, was shot dead after he heroically tried to wrestle the gun from the hostage-taker inside the Lindt cafe in Martin Place just after 2am on Tuesday morning.

Ms Dawson, a 38-year-old mother of three young children, later died in hospital after being held hostage for more than 16 hours. She was a barrister at Eight Selborne Chambers in Sydney's Phillip Street, opposite the Lindt cafe.  

It comes after revelations the remaining hostages made a break for the exit of the Lindt cafe before 2am after gunman Man Haron Monis began to fall asleep - more than 16 hours after he took 17 people captive.

The 50-year-old gunman is believed to have fired the first shots before teams of heavily armed police swooped on the cafe in a hail of gunfire and brought an end to a tense stand-off.

Mr Johnson, Ms Dawson and their Iranian-born captor were killed in the dramatic and chaotic firefight as terrifying details continue to emerge of the terrorist siege.

Hundreds of floral tributes have started to appear in Martin Place and the NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione personally visited the site on Tuesday morning. 

Women were photographed standing outside the Lindt cafe on Tuesday morning with tears streaming down their faces just hours after the siege ended.

Police issued a statement describing the event as a confrontation with a 50-year man, who they said died after shots were fired. The man was pronounced dead after being taken to hospital, police said.

A man, aged 34, and a woman, aged 38, also died, the police said in their statement.

Of the injured, two women have non life-threatening injuries and a police officer was injured by gunshot pellets, the police said. Another woman has a gunshot wound to the shoulder.

Live television coverage earlier showed at least two people being taken away from the scene on stretchers, while one hostage was seen being carried out of the building. She appeared to be in pain and blood flowed down her legs.

Nine News reported that eleven hostages had been accounted for after the police raid, which occurred shortly after 2am. 

Seven Network reporter Chris Reason, who was watching the siege unfold from his newsroom across the road, said some of the hostages broke free after Monis attempted to usher the hostages from one side of the café to the other. 

One man emerged from the cafe with his hands up and lay down on the ground in front of police. Seconds later, a group of at least five hostages escaped from the cafe.

It is believed that Monis then fired his shotgun, reportedly killing one of his captives. This appeared to be the trigger for tactical police to move in. 

Within seconds, they had blasted through the cafe door and opened fire with automatic weapons, also hurling what appeared to be stun grenades. The sounds of explosions echoed through the city, and the flashes of rifle fire and the grenades lit up the area.

The gunfight lasted less than two minutes, and more hostages emerged after the police raid.

As the scene calmed down, a bomb disposal robot was seen entering the cafe.

Self-proclaimed Islamic cleric Man Haron Monis, a 49-year-old man living in southwest Sydney, came to Australia from Iran as a refugee in 1996. 

He first came to the attention of authorities when he started sending hate mail to the families of Australian dead soldiers between 2007 and 2009, according to The Daily Telegraph.

The siege in the Lindt cafe in Martin Place on Monday reportedly followed an unsuccessful effort to have a conviction related to penning those letters overturned in the High Court on Friday, according to The Age.

Monis received 300 community service hours and a two-year good behaviour bond for the correspondence, which he claims were his version of sympathy cards and sent with the help from his girlfriend Amirah Droudis. 

The hostage-taker was charged as an accessory to the murder of his ex-wife - who was allegedly stabbed and set on fire on a flight of stairs in her western Sydney apartment block in November 2013. The man's current partner was charged with murder but they both received bail as the case was deemed too weak.

He was arrested in April this year for the sexual assault of a 27-year-old woman in 2002 after luring her to his clinic following claims he was as an expert in astrology, meditation and black magic, The Daily Telegraph reported. 

Monis was slapped with an additional 40 charges in October after more victims came forward alleging incidents took place in his spiritual healing clinic in Station Street in Wentworthville, western Sydney.

High-profile Sydney Muslim leader Jamal Rifi told Daily Mail Australia he knew of the gunman but not on a personal level.

‘What he expressed did not reflect the Muslim community which is why he is not part of the larger Muslim community and that’s why he does not belong to a mainstream mosque,’ he said.

‘He wanted his name known and may want some gratification from the reaction to this’ 

The hostages were seized by the gunman on Monday morning after he stormed the Sydney cafe. Several captives made an early courageous break for freedom but it was thought that about 15 hostages remained in the cafe through the night. 

During the stand-off with police, three videos were released on YouTube, believed to be of three female hostages putting the gunman's demands to police. Those demands included the police bringing an ISIS flag to the cafe and insisting on a conversation with Prime Minister Tony Abbott. 

Daily Mail Australia decided not to air the disturbing footage which was taken down during the night. The gunman's name was released soon after midnight, after senior police gave their approval to various media outlets.

The drama began unfolding Monday morning when the gunman entered the cafe, located in one of busiest plazas in Sydney's central business district, and pulled a shotgun from a blue carry bag and disabled the doors.

Soon afterwards, hostages were seen with their hands pressed against the windows holding up the Islamic Shahada flag. It is an emblem of extremist group Jabhat al-Nusra, which is fighting the Assad government in Syria. The man was described as wearing a headband with Arabic writing on it.

Scores of police rushed to the scene, evacuating surrounding buildings and closing off part of the city. The scene sent shockwaves across Australia, where terror attacks have rarely touched home soil.

Paramilitary police armed with automatic rifles spent Monday surrounding the cafe, with senior commanders saying they were prepared to take a patient approach to the siege, hoping to end it through negotiation with the gunman.

A total of five hostages, including barista Elly Chen, managed to escape the cafe by scrambling out a side door about seven hours into the drama. Fear etched on their faces, they ran into the arms of waiting police.

It is understood the hostages escaped from the cafe, rather than being released by their captor. One former male hostage was taken to nearby St Vincent's Hospital, in Sydney's inner suburbs, and is being treated for a pre-existing condition. 

The gunman flew into a rage when he realised some of his captives had escaped.

'The gunman could be seen from here getting extremely agitated, shouting at remaining hostages,' tweeted journalist Chris Reason.

The light inside the building went off through the night but police would not reveal whether it was a law enforcement or hostage-taker tactic. Mr Reason said he could see the gunman rotating the hostages through positions in the store's window.

'From inside Martin Place we can see the faces of hostages - pained, strained, eyes red and raw,' he recounted. Food and water was also being delivered to the prisoners from the cafe's back kitchens. 

Daily Mail Australia understands a 25-year-old female fashion industry worker and two female baristas aged in their 30s were among that number.

Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione said overnight that police would do whatever it takes for the situation to be peacefully resolved.

Sydney was eerily quiet on Monday night. Office buildings went into lockdown earlier this morning, Martin Place train station - a central thoroughfare for workers - was shuttered. Events at the Opera House, such as a performance of the Nutcracker, were cancelled as the city icon was evacuated.

Hundreds of heavily armed police, operating under unprecedented Task Force Pioneer counter-terrorism protocols, were scouring the city, completely isolating the darkened cafe. 

On Monday morning, columnist Chris Kenny, who was in the shop about 20 minutes before the siege began, said he understood the automatic glass sliding doors had been disabled after the gunman stormed the store. 

'I did speak to a couple of people who saw a bit more of this unfold than I did,' he said. 'One woman said she tried to go into the shop just after I came out with my takeaway coffee but the doors wouldn't open.

'So obviously whoever is doing this has disabled the automatic glass sliding doors to stop anyone else going in and she said immediately she could see there was a weapon. 

'The woman was quite frantic but very clear what she was telling (the police).

'I know the faces of the people who are sitting there enjoying a morning coffee.' 

2GB radio host Ray Hadley said he had three tense telephone conversations with one of the hostages inside the cafe and he could hear the gunman giving demands.

The hostage asked to be put to air live following the instructions of the gunman. However, Hadley refused saying he didn't have the expertise to deal with the situation.

'There are some people who are not well. They've been in there for five hours, they're distraught,' he said. 

'I'm not in a position to comply with requests that have been made, I can't.

'The media can't play a role in negotiating with people purporting to be from Islamic State holding hostages in a cafe in Sydney. This is the job of authorities to solve htis problem.

'They want us to say things that we simply can't say.'

Witnesses described the chaotic scenes in the legal, business and media centre as it was shut down and scores of heavily armed police surrounded the Lindt building. 

All of the chocolate chain's stores around Sydney were closed following the incident, in an act of camaraderie.

A Lindt cafe employee, who was due to start her shift just an hour after the Sydney hostage drama unfolded, said she was 'shaking with fear' when the gunman arrived.

Kathryn Chee, a chocolatier at the cafe said she meant to turn up early for her 11am shift because the business had been so busy in the lead up to Christmas.

'It shakes me to the bone,' Ms Chee told the ABC. She said her colleagues who are now hostages are 'people who I hold like another family'.

'It's good I'm not there but I wish I could be there for them. That could be me standing there.'

Ms Chee said the young woman seen in footage holding an Islamic flag pressed against the window had 'a look of sheer horror on her face'.

She says the woman is a thoughtful colleague who bakes treats for people's birthdays.

Ms Chee said the male hostage seen in the TV footage is a funny guy who jokes with the customers. 

The Seven Network newsroom, which is in a building opposite the cafe, was among the first to be evacuated, immediately followed by the nearby Westpac building and the Reserve Bank of Australia. Surrounding buildings soon followed or went into lockdown. 

Even the city's courts, including the venerable Downing Centre building, were sealed for the day, with police quickly vacating the areas. 

Rosemary Healion, who works at Frederick Jordan Chambers, told Daily Mail Australia on Monday morning that 'a couple hundred' of her colleagues were inside at the time of the attack. 

'My colleagues are still in there. They're trying to get them out now,' Ms Healion told Daily Mail Australia.

Ms Healion said her office was on the ground floor, the same one as Lindt and they had been pushed behind the office's reception area.

'I'm so so worried as you would be. I was about to walk into the cafe. I get coffee there all the time.'

Window cleaner, David Wilson, managed to get a birds-eye-view of police swarming into Martin Place as he and a colleague cleaned the windows of a building across from Lindt.

'We were looking around and there were cops running around and guns drawn. Some people came out, they looked like just coffee drinkers and that was about all we saw,' Mr Wilson said, adding that his colleague's first response was to get out his phone and start filming.

Rodrigo Neryt was arriving at Channel Seven for his first day of work experience when he heard screaming out the front of the cafe.

'I was at the corner when everything started. I saw people yelling and screaming and two police cars arriving at the scene. I saw what looked like a black ISIS flag and they were holding it up'.

John Edwards works across the road from the cafe on the ninth floor of 53 Martin Place.

He said every floor of the building had been cleared about 11.15am.

'We were evacuated out of the building from the basement,' Mr Edwards told Daily Mail Australia.

'All we were told by security was to get out.' 

Lindt Australia issued a statement about the siege on its Facebook page. 

'We are deeply concerned over this serious incident and our thoughts and prayers are with the staff and customers involved and all their friends and families,' they said. 

Earlier this year, it was reported that Martin Place was the planned location of a terror plot. It was alleged in September that Omarjan Azari, the 22-year-old Sydney man arrested on terrorism charges, was planning a public beheading there. 

The alleged terror plot, mentioned in a conversation between now deceased Australian terrorism recruiter in Syria, Mohammad Ali Barylei and Azari, involved selecting a member of the public at random, beheading them and then covering their body in a flag.

The whole incident was going to be filmed, and then used as propaganda for the Islamic State cause. Federal prosecutors said the alleged terror plot was 'clearly designed to shock, horror and terrify the community'

Police Prosecutor Michael Allnutt said that Azari had made a threat which involved a 'random selection of persons to execute' during a telephone conversation with Baryalei.

Azari was arrested on September 18 and charged with preparing for an act of terrorism.

He is due in court this week for a bail application.