Siege hostages tell their stories on TV

A television special featuring interviews with eight hostages who survived the fatal Lindt Cafe siege has kicked off on Network Nine.

Interviewees expected to feature on the two-hour special include cafe workers Jarrod Morton-Hoffman, Fiona Ma, Joel Herat and Paolo Vassallo.

Harriette Denny, Selina Win Pe, Louisa Hope and her mother Robin Hope, are the other survivors expected to appear.

The program has opened with a series of emotional quotes from the hostages' interviews.

"I said please don't shoot me, please please don't shoot me," Ms Win Pe, a Westpac worker, says in one extract.

"We won't leave people behind because I wouldn't be able to live with the guilt," Ms Ma says in another.

Ms Ma said she almost didn't go to work on the fateful day, because her work pants had not dried overnight.

The siege inside the Lindt cafe claimed the lives of hostages store manager Tori Johnson, barrister Katrina Dawson and gunman Man Haron Monis.

The Nine Network's 60 Minutes special, which is airing at the same time as a special on rival network Seven, has secured interviews with eight hostages caught in the 16-hour ordeal.

Nine has reportedly forked out $1 million for the combined package.

The special comes after the opening day of a coronial inquest into the siege revealed Monis forced Mr Johnson to kneel then shot him in the back of the head.

It also heard that Ms Dawson was killed by ricocheting police bullets in the volley of fire that followed.

Ms Ma said Monis ordered a chocolate cheesecake and an English breakfast black tea when he arrived at the cafe.

"He was nice actually ... as a customer," she told Network Nine.

Ms Ma said Monis asked to speak with Mr Johnson, adding that "I thought he wanted to complain".

She said she then saw Monis "gesture to Tori (Johnson) to sit down".

The interviewees have told Nine that after the doors were locked, Monis told the hostages that he was going to terrorise Australians due to the nation's involvement in Iraq.

"I want to terrorise millions of Australians," Mr Morton-Hoffman recalls Monis saying.

Ms Pin We said Monis told the hostages he had a bomb in his backpack that he never took off.

"I thought he was going to shoot us in our back, I thought he was just going to start shooting," she told Nine.

Monis then told the hostages to phone emergency services to "tell them what was going on".

Mr Morton-Hoffman said he spoke to police negotiators, and tried to indicate that there was only one gunman.

The hostages thoughts then moved to escape plans, according to Nine, as tensions increased due to media not broadcasting Monis' demands

Mr Morton-Hoffman and Mr Herat, who were armed with scissors and a stanley knife, considered attacking Monis.

But there were doubts.

"What if I miss, what are the consequences ... who's he going to shoot," Mr Herat told Nine.

"I just couldn't end up doing it, I just couldn't."

Mr Morton-Hoffman said he thought about stabbing Monis "in the jugular", but didn't because the hostage-taker's gun was pointed "at Julie Taylor's back".

Mr Morton-Hoffman said the risk "was too great".