Update:
●Taitung hostage situation ends peacefully

Taipei, Dec. 22 (CNA) A fugitive who took hostages in Taitung City during a police raid Monday evening has demanded that police stop using loudspeakers in their negotiations.

The armed fugitive, surnamed Lin, made the demand using his remaining hostage's mobile phone after Taitung City Police Bureau chief Wang Chin-yuan (王欽源) urged him to end the hostage situation Tuesday morning.

The police agreed to the request, but negotiations to secure the release of the last hostage continue.

Earlier in the morning, Wang told Lin through a loudspeaker that police and prosecutors will investigate Lin's claim that he was framed by an officer in a prior case he is wanted for, but that pledge was not enough to end the crisis.

Lin took three university students hostage in a house close to his hideout after escaping when police tried to arrest him on Monday night for a suspected robbery.

Two of the three hostages were released at around 9:30 p.m. the same night.

Communicating with Apple Daily, a mass-circulating newspaper, via telephone and messaging service LINE, Lin said he was framed in the alleged robbery.

He said a friend asked him to help him collect a debt, and after the task was completed, the friend's father, who Lin suspects is a police informer, gave him a gun that was later used as evidence against him.

Lin said that when police interrogated him about the debt collection, they accused him of committing a robbery.

The hostage taker has made several demands in the negotiations, including to see his family, meet with the police officer in charge of the robbery case and meet with his ex-girlfriend.

Taitung Mayor Chang Kuo-chou (張國洲), who has been involved in the negotiations with Lin, said on Tuesday morning that Lin has met with his older sister.

(By Tyson Lu and Kay Liu)
Enditem/ls