Man who took hostages in German cinema shot dead

A masked man was shot dead yesterday after entering a movie theatre in southwestern Germany with what appeared to be a rifle and taking several hostages, authorities said. No one else was hurt in the incident.

The armed man entered the Kinopolis movie theatre in the town of Viernheim in the early afternoon and apparently fired a gun. The man held several hostages, police spokeswoman Christiane Kobus said, but she didn’t have a precise number.

Officers “successively entered the cinema and were able to locate the man and the people he was holding,” Ms Kobus told The Associated Press. “There was a threat situation and the man was then shot dead by a colleague.”