KOTA KINABALU: About 100 customers were sent scurrying when four gunmen – one brandishing an automatic rifle with ammunition strapped to his chest and another armed with a pistol – burst into the popular Ocean King Seafood Restaurant by Sandakan seafront and took two people hostage.
The gunmen grabbed female restaurant manager Thien Yoke Fun, 50, and Bernard Chen Ted Fen, 36, a tourist from Sarawak, before speeding off in a boat after the 7.30pm raid. Chen was sitting at the table closest to the sea while Thien was taken from the counter. The raid lasted less than a minute.