“All the hostages were released unharmed,” the police in the canton of Vaud said in a statement on Friday. “The hostage taker was fatally injured during the intervention.”
The ordeal began around 6:35 pm local time, after the train driver had to leave his post and join other passengers. Police said the hostage-taker spoke a mixture of Persian and English.
After alerting people trapped on the train, about 60 officers arrived at the scene shortly after and sealed off the area, about 40 miles west of the Swiss capital, Bern.
Negotiations with the hostage-taker were conducted with the help of a Persian translator and partly via the WhatsApp messaging service on the hostages' mobile phones. In a press conference following the incident, Vaud canton police spokesman, Jean-Christophe Soterel, said that the authorities eventually decided to storm the train and carried out a maneuver that kept the man away from the hostages.
“One of the hostage takers stormed the emergency team with an axe, and a police officer used his weapon to protect the hostages and fatally beat the perpetrator,” Sutterle said. The man died at the scene.
The hostages received medical and psychological care and were taken to the police station where they were interrogated. Relatives were also waiting for them.
The motive behind the accident remains unclear, according to police.
