Police in Georgia on Tuesday freed 14 hostages who were held by an armed man at a bank in the country’s second-largest city of Kutaisi, officials said.
“All the 14 hostages were freed and the hostage-taker arrested,” the Black Sea nation’s interior ministry said in a statement.
It had said earlier on Tuesday that an armed man took 12 people hostage and demanded a large sum of money at a Bank of Georgia branch in the city of around 150,000 people in central Georgia.
An investigation was opened into a “terrorist act, hostage-taking and illegal possession of firearms”, the ministry said.
The independent Mtavari TV station has aired a mobile phone video shot by one of the hostages, which showed what he said were two explosive devices on the entrance door.
“He (the hostage-taker) says these are bombs which will explode if the door opens,” the hostage said.
Another video showed the alleged hostage-taker — a masked gunman in military fatigues — and the bank interior.
A female hostage was heard saying: “His demand is $2 million (two million euros) within three hours. He has a hand grenade and there are bombs which will explode.”
In October 2020, a gunman took 43 people hostage in a Bank of Georgia branch in the western city of Zugdidi.
He freed all the hostages, escaping with an unspecified amount of cash, and has never been detained.
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