Hostage drama at Amsterdam Apple store ends, gunman overpowered

A hostage-taker puts his arm around the neck of an hostage during a robbery at the Apple Store on Leidseplein in Amsterdam on Feb 22, 2022. A man with a firearm was in the vicinity of an Amsterdam shop, police in the Netherlands said Feb 22, 2022 adding that officers were at the scene said by local media to be an Apple store. The gunman has since been overpowered. — AFP

THE HAGUE: A man with a firearm who held several people hostage at Apple’s flagship store in central Amsterdam was overpowered late Tuesday after a siege lasting several hours, police said, adding that the last of the hostages had been freed.

Police had deployed several special units to “get the situation under control” after being alerted of an armed robbery at 5.40pm (1640 GMT) which had rapidly transformed into a hostage situation.