Woman freed after hostage incident in Berlin supermarket

A woman who was taken hostage in a supermarket in the German capital Berlin has been freed, police told dpa on Saturday morning. 

"The perpetrator has been overpowered and the hostage freed," police spokesman Florian Nath said. He said special forces freed the woman in a special operation involving a Taser at around 9:20 am (0720 GMT).

Nath said the woman was in a state of shock and was treated by emergency services before being transported to hospital. He was unable to provide further details on her condition, but said: "Fortunately, no one has been seriously injured here. As things stand, there are no serious injuries to report."

The suspected hostage-taker, who sustained minor injuries during the raid, was also taken to hospital.

The man had taken the woman hostage and threatened her inside a supermarket in Berlin's southern Marienfelde neighbourhood on Friday evening shortly after 10 pm, police said. 

The motive was initially unclear. According to initial findings, the man and the hostage are not believed to have had any prior relationship. The police stressed that there was no danger to local residents.

A police spokesman said earlier that officers had made contact with the perpetrator. Police spokesman Nath said the man was making various "impulsive demands that were difficult to make sense of" and did not "reflect a meticulous plan."

Police had mounted a major operation, cordoning off a wide area around the supermarket, which belongs to the Rewe chain, on Hildburghauser Strasse near the city's southern edge.

A dpa reporter at the scene said several supermarket employees were seen standing behind the police cordon before the woman was freed.

One employee who had been working on Friday evening described the incident to journalists, saying he had been trying to clear the supermarket before closing time when a man pulled out a "very big" knife.

"I didn't see much; it all happened very quickly. You couldn't make much out either," the 22-year-old said. 

The man, a part-time worker at the branch, said he ran out of the supermarket with another member of staff and called the police. 

He said the woman who was held captive is a member of staff and that she "was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time."

When asked by dpa, the police neither confirmed nor denied the man's account. A spokesman said he could not comment as the operation was ongoing.