Police commandos storm hijacked bus in Berlin

German police commandos stormed a hijacked double-decker bus in Berlin today, ending a four-and-a-half hour hostage drama.

The armed man who commandeered the vehicle after a bank robbery was injured. Two hostages, including a policewoman, were freed unharmed.

All the other passengers on the bus had either escaped or been freed before it stopped and was ringed by police sharpshooters in a tense stand-off.

The hostage-taker had robbed the bank with another man earlier today, and it was not clear at what point he had slipped away.

The hostage-taker was shot, apparently in the shoulder, as the bus was stormed, police spokesman Christian Matzdorf said. No police where hurt.

More than 20 passengers were on board when the bus was hijacked outside the bank at about 8.40am Irish time.

After about an hour on the road the yellow double-decker, apparently cornered by unmarked police cars, came to a stop in the Schoeneberg district.

Police sealed off the area as sharpshooters took up position along a wall about 20 yards away, while police commandos in helmets and bullet-proof vests surrounded the bus, some occasionally peering in the windows.

They negotiated for several hours with the armed man in a bid to free his captives: a passenger and a policewoman who followed him onto the bus after the hold-up. Police would not say whether the hijacker had made any demands.

Gunfire heard on the bus earlier could have come from the hijacker or the captive policewoman, Matzdorf said.

The bus was commandeered after two men held up a Commerzbank branch in a busy shopping street in the southern district of Steglitz.

Witnesses said two masked men entered the bank, one with a pistol, and shouted “Money, money.”

They made off with some cash and then hijacked the bus at a stop outside the bank. The men appeared to be between 25 and 30 years old, said bank customer Sabine Gause.