A man armed with an ax and a knife took a group of people hostage on a train between two cities in western Switzerland on Thursday evening until police intervened four hours later, killing the kidnapper and freeing the hostages. The man, who according to various unofficial reports was an Iranian asylum seeker, detained fourteen passengers and the train driver.
Authorities said that the reasons for this crime were unknown, in which the perpetrator forced the train driver to leave his post to join the rest of the hostages, who were held for more than four hours while the vehicle was idle at the station . from Essert-sous-Champvent, between the towns of Baulmes and Yverdon-les-Bains.
Specialists in negotiating kidnapping cases They made contact with the author via the hostages’ phones.
“In this operation we put the safety of the hostages first and did everything we could to persuade him to surrender,” said Vaud police spokesman Jean-Christophe Sauterel today. The order to attack was given after 10:00 p.m. local time after explosives were used to divert the hijacker’s attention and it was revealed that he had momentarily separated himself from his victims.
As soon as he realized the trick, the kidnapper walked towards the intervention group with a threatening posture and the ax in hand, whereupon one of the police officers used his weapon and fatally wounded him, in a gesture that the police suggest it was self-defense.
All hostages were safely released. “There is currently no evidence of a terrorist or extremist act,” said the police spokesman today.