Man possess eight hostages in Czech, demands to file a criminal complaint

An armed man was holding eight people hostage at a bank in the central Czech town of Pribram on Friday, insisting he wanted to file a criminal complaint rather than rob the bank, a police spokeswoman said. "We still have eight hostages. A police negotiator is here, he is talking to the armed man," Pribram police spokeswoman Monika Schindlova told AFP, adding that the man was carrying a gun.

She said the man had released one hostage before the special operations unit arrived and that none of the hostages had been injured. "Before the negotiator arrived, the man had said he didn't want to hurt anyone and that this was no bank robbery," said Schindlova.

"He wanted to negotiate and to file some criminal complaint," she added. The hold-up, in the town about 50 kilometres (30 miles) southwest of the capital Prague, took place around 1330 GMT.