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Downtown Moscow bank hostage taker lets another hostage go — source

One person is reportedly still held hostage at a bank in downtown Moscow

© Artyom Geodakyan/TASS

MOSCOW, August 24. /TASS/. The man who took hostages in a bank office in downtown Moscow has let one more person go, a TASS correspondent reported.

The report was confirmed by a law enforcement source.

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Moscow bank hostage taker calls himself bankrupt businessman

According to the Investigative Committee, one hostage remains inside the seized bank office in downtown Moscow.

"One hostage remains inside the bank now," Yulia Ivanova, a spokeswoman for the Russian Investigative Committee’s Main Investigative Directorate in Moscow, told TASS.

The man who called himself a businessman from the Moscow region has taken hostages in a Citibank office located some 800 meters from the Kremlin. He said he had been manufacturing first aid kits until recently before going bankrupt.

According to a source, the hostage taker has demanded "setting up an institute of bankruptcy of individuals."

The law on bankruptcy of individuals came into force in Russia on October 1, 2015.

The Investigation Committee has initiated criminal proceedings on hostage-taking charges.

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