Police killed a gunman who took hostage a group of Hong Kong tourists on a bus in the heart of the Philippine capital today, a senior police official said. "He is dead. He was forced to retreat to the front of the vehicle when the SWAT (special weapons and tactics police) team attacked from the back," assault leader Superintendent Nelson Yabut said. At least five Hong Kong tourists were killed during the dramatic hostage siege. "At the moment there are five casualties. Four are confirmed dead. One is in a critical condition," Faith Gaerlan, emergency medicine chief at Manila Doctors Hospital, told AFP. Another hospital also received the body of a woman it identified as among the hostages, a member of its emergency medical staff said. Metropolitan Manila police chief director Leocadio Santiago said police could not immediately give an exact figure of the casualties and those who survived. A total of 22 Hong Kong tourists and three Filipinos were aboard the tourist bus when sacked police senior inspector Rolando Mendoza seized the vehicle early today, demanding that he be reinstated. He released nine people during police negotiations, including two Filipinos, and demanded his job back to release the rest. The remaining Filipino, the bus driver, escaped when Mendoza began shooting at the hostages by nightfall, forcing police to launch an assault in a bid to free the remaining 15 hostages. The Filipino driver who escaped moments before police surrounded the bus in downtown Manila said the hostage-taker, armed with an M16 rifle, had opened fire at the tourists, police officer Roderick Mariano said. Police used hammers to smash side windows, door and windscreen, but did not initially enter the vehicle and there was no movement seen inside.
Hours after seizing the bus, he released two women, three children, a diabetic man and three Filipinos - including a tour guide and a photographer, police said. The hostage-taker, identified as former senior inspector Rolando Mendoza, 55, was demanding he be given back his job on the police force a year after he was fired, the Manila police chief Rodolfo Magtibay said. According to newspaper reports from 2008, he was among five officers charged with robbery, extortion and grave threats after a Manila hotel chef filed a complaint alleging the policemen falsely accused him of using drugs to extort money. A Chinese diplomat who was monitoring today's negotiations said the hostages were "calm and peaceful" and appealed to Philippine authorities not to jeopardise their safety as the day-long talks with the gunman continued into the evening.
Bai Tian, the deputy mission chief at the Chinese Embassy, told reporters they wanted every step taken "to secure the safety and security of our Chinese nationals". The Hong Thai Travel Services Ltd general manager, Susanna Lau, told Hong Kong's Cable TV the tour group had left the Chinese territory of Hong Kong on August 20 for a visit to Manila and was scheduled to fly back to Hong Kong today.
She said a Hong Kong tour guide and 20 tourists from the territory, three children and 17 adults, were on the bus. Mr Mendoza hitched a ride on the bus from the historic walled city of Intramuros then "declared he is taking the passengers hostage" when it reached Jose Rizal Park alongside Manila Bay, Magtibay said.
The area also includes the seaside US Embassy and a number of hotels.
* Agencies
