The four people taken hostage for several hours on Saturday in a cafe in the Netherlands were released and the suspect was arrested and detained without bloodshed, Dutch police announced. Authorities said there was no reason to suspect a “terrorist motive” for the attack, which took place in a night spot popular with young people in the town of Ede, about 100 kilometers away. east of The Hague.
Police said they were informed of a possible hostage situation at 5.15am at Café Petticoat, with local media claiming a “confused” man had burst in while staff were cleaning the premises after a party. The man was armed with “several knives” which he showed to the hostages, prosecutor Marthyne Kunst said at a press conference at city hall. Police are also investigating a black backpack that the attacker, who allegedly threatened to use explosives, was carrying.
“Known to the police”
Police spokesperson Anne Jan Oosterheert said officers arrived on the scene within minutes of the man’s arrival and immediately began negotiations with him. “Fortunately, everything went well,” he said, declining to give details of the negotiations. The suspect is known to the police and has already been convicted of threatening behavior.
An investigation is underway into his motivations and his psychological state, said Marthyne Kunst. The incident triggered a major deployment of riot police and explosives experts. Police evacuated the city center and residents of around 150 buildings near the cafe. Several hours after the start of the hostage-taking, a first group of three people was released, images from public broadcaster NOS showing them leaving the building with their hands in the air.
The fourth hostage was released shortly after, and the suspected hostage-taker was arrested. Footage broadcast by NOS showed a man kneeling on the ground with his hands behind his back while officers restrained him using handcuffs.
#BREAKING : Netherlands: Police have surrounded the cafe in Ede, where a suspect is holding hostages. (Via – AsgardIntel) #Ede#Netherlands#hostage#suspicious#crimenews#bar#newspic.twitter.com/kQMb2SLUAk
— mishikasingh (@mishika_singh) March 30, 2024
“A lot of questions”
“A terrible situation for all these people. My concern and my thoughts are with them and their loved ones. I hope that the situation will be resolved quickly and safely,” declared the mayor of Ede, Rene Verhulst. . “There are many questions about the motive. For the moment, there is nothing to indicate that it was a terrorist act,” police said on Saturday morning.
A series of attacks since the 2000s
Last year, a 27-year-old man armed with two pistols took several people hostage for five hours at an Apple store in Amsterdam. Hit by a police car while chasing his last hostage, who fled the store, the man died in hospital from his injuries.
The Netherlands has experienced a series of terrorist attacks and plots, but not on the scale experienced by other European countries, such as France or the United Kingdom. In 2019, the country was hit by a shooting on a tram in the city of Utrecht which claimed the lives of four people. In 2004, Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh was assassinated in Amsterdam by a man with links to a Dutch Islamist terrorist network.