Iranian Man Wielding Weapons Killed By Police After Seizing Hostages On Swiss Train

A train passes through the station close to where an Iranian man armed with an axe and a knife held 15 hostages on a train for almost four hours until police stormed the train and fatally wounded him late on February 8, in Essert-sous-Champvent, Switzerland.

Swiss police say a 32-year-old Iranian asylum seeker was killed by police after he used an axe and a knife to seize more than a dozen hostages for several hours on a train in western Switzerland. No passengers were injured. The man took the hostages in the evening on February 8 and police, alerted by passengers, sealed off the area while the train was stopped in the town of Essert-sous-Champvert, police in the French-speaking Vaud region said. The man, speaking Farsi and English, demanded the train engineer join the 15 hostages. Nearly four hours after the incident began, police stormed the train.