4 hostages rescued – Diario de Yucatan

BRUSSELS (EFE).— The police of the Netherlands (Holland) reported that the four people kidnapped during yesterday’s hostage taking in a bar in the city of Ede were released, and that the suspect in the detention was arrested.

First, a group of three hostages were released, as announced by the Dutch Police through the social network with the arrest of the suspect of having carried out the kidnapping.

The arrested man left the bar with a balaclava on his head and turned his back towards a group of specialized police officers, before whom he knelt so that they might handcuff him and take him away in a car, according to the videos distributed by the press.

During the morning, security forces negotiated with the alleged kidnapper, said the head of operations of the Eastern Netherlands police, Anne Jan Oosterheert, in statements reported by public radio and television NOS during a press conference following the event.

The Police received a first notice around 5:15 a.m. CET reporting a possible hostage situation in the bar, Oosterheert said: “In two minutes we arrived at the scene and the situation turned out to be very serious; There were possibly explosives and knives were also seen. “Then we cordoned off the area.”

Yesterday morning, the Police ruled out that there was a terrorist motivation behind this incident, although they did not give, so far, any other details regarding the reasons for the kidnapping.

In the subsequent press conference, the head of the Eastern Netherlands Prosecutor’s Office, Marthyne Kunst, confirmed that the arrested man was carrying several knives that he showed to the hostages and that he also had a black backpack, although the representative of the Public Prosecutor’s Office said she was unaware. what was inside.

“In the coming days we will carry out a thorough investigation into this, as well as into the mental state of the suspect,” who had previously been convicted of threats, Kunst said in statements reported by NOS.

The hostage taking took place at the Petticoat bar, a place that opens at dawn in Ede, located in the center of the Netherlands.

The hostages were employees who were cleaning the premises at that time, according to the mayor of Ede, René Verhulst, in the press conference following the kidnapping.

In the images released by the Dutch press, the three hostages who were initially released as a group appear wearing sweaters on which the name of the establishment is printed.