Teenager holds sister hostage with 20 pupils

None of the students was hurt in the three-and-a-half-hour ordeal at the Casal de l’Angel school in the industrial town of Hospitalet de Llobregat, just south of Barcelona.

Interior Minister Angel Acebes confirmed the arrest and said the hostage-taker was a young, former pupil of the school. The Education Ministry said he was 16 or 17.

The Interior Ministry office in Barcelona said after it was all over that the number of hostages was 20 rather than 25 as had been believed, and that one group of 16 was released about two hours into the ordeal. Four remained until the end. All 20 were 11 or 12-years-old.

While the youth held the last four, police asked if he was hungry and he asked for pizza, the Interior Ministry said.

A plainclothes policeman came back with a pizza and overpowered the youth when he opened the door to the classroom where he was holding the students, a ministry official said.

“This was a very atypical case,” the official said.

It was not immediately known if the boy’s sister was among the 16 hostages he had freed.

The Interior Ministry said the attacker had a knife and that his motive appeared to be money, but it could not confirm a report that he had demanded 1 million.