A dramatic hostage situation at Copenhagen’s police headquarters turned out to be a media stunt, said the lawyer representing the prisoner and hostage taker who instigated the incident.
In an interview with the Copenhagen Post, Copenhagen Police spokesperson James Keiwe said a special response unit was sent to the Danish capital’s police headquarters after an armed prisoner in his 30s had held a fellow prisoner in his 20s hostage. Keiwe also said the older inmate used a homemade weapon to take his hostage.
The hostage taker was arrested, his hostage was released, and the area surrounded police headquarters was blocked off. There were no injuries. The hostage taker’s lawyer, Finn Walther Petersen, had to wait nearly two hours to speak with his client for security reasons.
Once Petersen was able to enter the high security detention centre and speak to his client, he received a sheet of paper saying the incident was a media stunt and both prisoners involved in the situation were in on the act.
“Truthfully, it wasn’t really taking a hostage,” Petersen said during a metroXpress newspaper interview. “It was about making the press aware of his situation.”
Petersen also said his client has attempted to leave his gang environment through Denmark’s exit programme without success for 20 months. The perpetrator surrendered to the police and set his ‘hostage’ free after the discussion with Petersen. Both prisoners involved in the incident are housed within the same high security detention centre, which contains a total of 25 inmates.