Authorities in Switzerland say an asylum seeker was killed by police after he used an axe, a hammer, and a knife to take a dozen passengers and the mechanic of a train hostage.
In a statement on Feb. 9, police in the European country’s Vaud region confirmed that the 32-year-old man was an asylum seeker of Iranian nationality whose file was assigned to the canton of Geneva, a global banking hub home to one of the four major offices of the United Nations.
The man—who spoke only Farsi and English—took control of the train on Feb. 8 at around 6:35 p.m. local time by taking the train’s operator and 12 passengers hostage, police said.
Passengers stuck on the train, which came to a standstill in the town of Essert-sous-Champvent in western Switzerland, alerted police and notified them of the situation.
Once on site, police sealed off the area and deployed a security force that consisted of nearly 100 members of emergency services, including more than 60 police officers, authorities said.
A Farsi-speaking interpreter was also hired and law enforcement officials were eventually able to begin negotiations with the hostage-taker via WhatsApp.
At approximately 10:15 p.m., nearly four hours after the man took control of the train, an intervention team stormed the train as the perpetrator briefly moved away from the hostages.
“One of them first used his taser to immobilize the man who was rushing towards them,” police said in the statement. “The armed individual nevertheless continued his course in their direction and that of the hostages. A second member of the unit then used his weapon to neutralize him.”
No hostages were injured, authorities added.
The incident took place on the train line connecting Baulmes and Yverdon-les-Bains in the Swiss canton of Vaud near the French border, police said.
A preliminary investigation indicates that the hostage-taker’s motivations would be due to his conditions as an asylum seeker, as well as his insisting to have contact with a colleague from a center for asylum seekers, police said, noting law enforcement officials had to “intervene on several occasions because of his behavior.”
Jean-Christophe Sauterel, police spokesman for the Vaud canton, said that there was no indication that the incident was terrorism-related.
The investigation, directed by the Public Prosecutor’s Office, continues and aims to clarify the motivations of the Iranian and establish the circumstances that led to the police shooting.
“It’s an unprecedented event given the number of victims, 15 hostages, and the intervention of 60 police,” Attorney General Eric Kaltenrieder told a local TV station before police in the Vaud region updated the hostage tally to 12 passengers and a train operator on Feb. 9.
Hostage situations are rare in Switzerland but have occurred at banks and businesses. In January 2022, employees of a watch-making firm were taken hostage and forced to open a vault containing precious metals.
Meanwhile, a 17-year-old student told local news outlet 20 Minutes that a lot of students take the train to Yverdon-les-Bains every day, adding many people at his school are now afraid to take the train.
“At school today, everyone was talking about what happened last night,” he said.
Markus, a 58-year-old man from Sainte-Croix, told the publication that he took the same line on Feb. 8 about half an hour before the incident.
“When I found out about the incident, I just thought: For heaven’s sake, what’s going on here? It shocked me,” he said, adding that the thought that he was almost on that train distressed him.
Reuters contributed to this report.
