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The police blocked the street in front of the hotel in Euskirchen
Photo: Sebastian Klemm / dpa
In Euskirchen, North Rhine-Westphalia, a man took a hotel employee hostage on Thursday evening and demanded a ransom.
The emergency services summoned were able to overwhelm the hostage-taker.
The perpetrator was shot in the hip and overwhelmed by the police, said the Cologne police headquarters on Friday night.
The 22-year-old hotel employee had previously been slightly injured by the hostage taker.
He was taken to a hospital.
Explosives were just an empty threat
The scene had taken place in the entrance area of the hotel.
At around 7 p.m., the attacker threatened the employee with a knife and detained him, according to the police.
The man then demanded a larger sum of ransom from the alerted police.
He also stated that he was in possession of explosives.
During the night, emergency services with service dogs searched the vacated hotel building.
No evidence of explosives has yet been found, the police said.
After the hostage-taking, the police are now investigating the background to the crime, so the suspect has not yet been identified.
mrc / dpa