Hostages Held in Toulouse Bank by 'Al-Qaeda Man'
17:08 20/06/2012 MOSCOW, June 20 (RIA Novosti) - A man claiming to be a member of al-Qaeda took four people hostage in a bank in the French city of Toulouse on Wednesday, the BFM TV channel reported.
Later in the day, the man released one of the hostages, a woman, a police official told French media on conditions of anonymity. Negotiations are under way with the hostage-taker, the official added.
The man reportedly fired a shot and demanded to speak to the commandos who shot dead Mohamed Merah, the Islamist gunman who killed seven people in Toulouse in March.
The area around the bank has been sealed off by police.
"We do not know if his claim about al-Qaeda is serious or a fantasy," the BBC citing a police union source as telling the regional newspaper Ouest-France.
Merah, of French-Algerian descent, shot dead three soldiers, a rabbi and three Jewish children before being killed in a police raid at his home in Toulouse.
He claimed to have received terrorist training in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
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