Police free hostages from Rio bus, arrest gunman

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil, Nov 10 (Reuters) Police today subdued a gunman on a suburban bus in Rio de Janeiro without a shot being fired and freed hostages including the man's ex-wife following a 10-hour standoff broadcast on national television.

Rio police commander Hudson de Aguiar told Globo television that police officers entered the bus, released the hostages and arrested the hostage-taker after negotiators convinced him to give up his pistol and surrender.

The unnamed gunman had freed most of his captives during talks with police throughout the day.

Live television footage showed officers pointing their guns inside through the bus windows before the remaining half-dozen hostages started to get out.

Police quoted passengers as saying the man, aged between 30 and 40, accused his ex-wife of having cheated on him and threatened to kill her and then commit suicide. The two had been married for 10 years and divorced about four months ago.

He released several dozen passengers from the crammed bus shortly after the incident began at the peak of the morning rush hour.

Eight hours later, 13 men were seen coming out through the driver's window, helped by rescue workers. The gunman's relatives then came to talk to him through a window.

''He told us he did not want to hurt any hostage and that his problem was with his ex-wife. It is an act of passion,'' Aguiar told reporters.

Police had moved the bus to the curb in Nova Iguacu, on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, and deflated its tires after a passenger with a cell phone alerted authorities.

The hostage situation brought back memories of a June 2000 drama when an armed robber -- a survivor of a notorious 1993 massacre of street kids by a death squad -- hijacked a bus in Rio's upper-class Gavea district and held people hostage for more than four hours.

A police attempt to shoot the hostage-taker ended in a female passenger getting killed. Police seized the man alive but asphyxiated him on the way to the hospital.

REUTERS AD BST0346