Police in Germany's Dresden give all-clear after hostage-taking

[December 10, 2022]  BERLIN (Reuters) -Police said they had ended a suspected hostage-taking in the eastern German city of Dresden on Saturday, after evacuating a shopping mall in the historic city centre and shutting the famous Striezelmarkt Christmas market. 

Security forces secure the area at a Christmas market in Dresden, Germany, December 10, 2022. REUTERS/Matthias Rietschel

"All-clear! The hostage situation in #Dresden is over!" police said on Twitter, adding that two people who appeared to be unharmed were in its care.

It did not provide any details on the suspect.

News outlet TAG24 earlier cited police as saying that a 40-year-old German man was believed to have killed his 62-year-old mother in an apartment building in the Prohlis district of Dresden, southeast of the city centre.

It said that police said the hostage-taking at the Altmarkt-Galerie shopping mall was related to the killing but declined to provide further details.

The incident comes as security has shifted into focus in Germany, after investigators earlier this week foiled a far-right plot to overthrow the German government and install an aristocrat as the leader of a new state.

(Reporting by Sarah Marsh and Maria Sheahan; Editing by Ros Russell)

[© 2022 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.]

Copyright 2022 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.  Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.