Hostage-taker hacked to death

CHANTABURI (AFP): A man who took a child hostage at knifepoint was hacked to death yesterday with his own weapon by the boy’s enraged relatives, police said today. The unidentified man, believed to be in his 20s, was dressed only in underwear when he burst into the boy’s home, grabbed him and demanded to be driven out of the village in Chantaburi province. He kept the family at bay by holding the weapon, a large curved blade, to the child’s throat. “Then the hostage-taker accidentally dropped the knife on the floor and four relatives ran to chop him up,” said Pol Capt Montri Sirichan. The man was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital late yesterday. During the melée, the four relatives were also seriously injured, Capt Montri said. Police were trying to identify the man, who was unknown in the small rural settlement. “Nobody knows who he is or where he’s from,” Capt Montri said.