Malaysia: Boy's fingers chopped off by uncle

Malaysian police shot dead a man who chopped off three of his nephew’s fingers after taking him hostage in a 16-hour overnight standoff, police said today.

Mohamed Balih, 49, a Malaysian citizen of Filipino origin, died after police shot him in the head, chest and arm yesterday at his house in Bintulu town on Borneo island, said Tun Hisan Tun Hamzah, chief of Sarawak state’s crime investigation department. Mohamed had barricaded himself with his nephew, six-year-old Michael Lok, and began to cut off the boy’s fingers and slide them under the door, Tun Hisan said.

That’s when police decided to storm the room, he said. “Negotiations were going smoothly ... But then he rolled a finger underneath the door so we knew he had injured the boy,” he told The Associated Press. “We heard the boy (he) was shouting like hell.”

Lok lost three fingers and suffered slash wounds to the head, and he is in a critical condition at Bintulu hospital, Tun Hisan said.