Hostages freed in police raid on bank

TOULOUSE, France, June 20 (UPI) -- Two remaining hostages inside a Toulouse bank were freed Wednesday when French police stormed the bank where they were being held, police said.

The suspect, who says he is a member of al-Qaida, was wounded, Radio France International reported.

RFI said two women were freed Wednesday afternoon but two others remained in the bank while police negotiated with the man, nicknamed Boumaza.

Sources told Le Figaro the hostage-taker was diagnosed with schizophrenia and hasn't taken his medication.

Wednesday's incident is in the same city where another al-Qaida follower, Mohamed Merah, opened fire on a Jewish school and killed four people before being fatally shot in an exchange of gunfire with police in March.

The bank is near where Merah had a showdown with the elite squad that broke into his apartment after a two-day standoff and fatally shot him. The Toulouse hostage-taker asked that the elite team who engaged Merah be sent to the scene, RFI said.

Police set up a blockade around the bank.

Parents of students attending a nearby school were sent a text message telling them to pick up their children, witnesses said.

Rapid-intervention police units were sent to Toulouse from Bordeaux and Marseille, officials said.

RFI said there is no apparent link between Merah and the hostage-taker.

Merah's father is suing over his son's death in a shootout with police. Merah admitted to killing a rabbi, his two children and a schoolgirl outside a Jewish school March 19 and three paratroopers of North African descent the previous week before he was killed in an exchange of gunfire.