Belgium hostage drama continues

An armed convict, free on a day pass to see his children, held their babysitter and her daughter hostage in a Brussels apartment today, continuing a tense stand-off with police that began last night.

Police deployed snipers and cordoned off a wide area around Brussels’ central railway station, saying the man was armed with a handgun and a grenade.

The incident began around 7pm last night (6pm Irish time) in an apartment above a bar, said police spokesman Wim De Troy.

Almost 24 hours later, police were still locked in a stand-off with the hostage-taker and imposed a news blackout.

“It began with four hostages,” De Troy told reporters earlier.

They were the hostage-taker’s “two daughters, aged nine and two, the childminder and her daughter. After intense negotiations the children were freed late last night,” he added.

He said hostage-taker Farid Bamouhammad, 36, is upset at care arrangements for his children while he serves time for a series of violent offences, including a 2000 hostage-taking in a suburban burger restaurant that also involved his oldest daughter.

The man received a day pass to see his children yesterday but failed to return to prison in the southern Belgian city of Arlon.

One police officer was slightly injured when she arrived at the scene shortly after the stand-off began.

Government officials said under a 2004 court judgment Bamouhammad was allowed to see his children outside prison. He had already been given five day passes in the past four months, each time returning to the Arlon prison the same day he was released.