A seven-hour hostage drama in an Amsterdam office building has ended with the suicide of the lone gunman. Eighteen hostages escaped unhurt.
The 59-year-old man burst into the Rembrandt Tower, one of Amsterdam's tallest buildings, armed with a semi-automatic weapon and a handgun, at about 9.20am. He also had a range of chemicals which could have been dangerous in the right mixtures.
Eighteen people were initially taken hostage. Five women and two men were released during the day. At around 4.30pm, the man asked for a break in negotiations. He went to the toilets and shot himself twice in the head. The severely wounded gunman was brought to a nearby hospital where he died soon afterwards.
Negotiators were shocked by the man's suicide. He had apparently written several letters to consumer organisations and media organisations in the past year, criticising widescreen televisions.
The tower was once temporary headquarters for the electronics firm, Philips, but the Dutch electronics giant had relocated to a nearby building last year. The man admitted during the day that he had been targeting the wrong building.
He had sent a fax to Dutch television today in which he complained that the new television screens were being promoted as being "better looking than normal screens". He protested: "What you gain in width, you lose in height".
An official from the prosecutor's office said that the man had not made any demands, but just wanted attention for his problems with widescreen television. "There were psychological problems involved," the official added.
