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Police arrest NOS hostage taker who ‘wanted to speak to CNN’

August 17, 2017

Police cordon at the Haaksbergen crash sitePolice have arrested a 33-year-old man who took a woman hostage at the offices of public broadcasting company NPO in Hilversum on Thursday.

The arrest was made after a negotiator went into the building to talk to the hostage taker. According to the broadcaster itself, he did not know his female victim, who was unharmed during the incident.

The man reportedly stopped the woman outside the building and threatened her with a knife. They went inside together. The receptionist told NOS the man had pressed a large knife to his victim’s throat and spoke in broken Dutch, demanding to speak to someone from CNN.

He then went with his victim into another room which was not within the secure part of the complex. It is as yet unclear what the man’s motive was. Police, who sealed off a large part of the media park, ended the hostage-taking after around 90 minutes.

In January 2015, a young student took over the NOS news studio demanding airtime to air conspiracy theories. He has since been jailed.

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