Mystery of "missing gunman" continues after 5-hour armed siege around hotel in Spanish town

Police in the Basque Region of northern Spain were still searching on Monday for a man who appears to have disappeared after spending four hours holed up in a hotel room in the town of Barakaldo, close to Bilbao, on Sunday evening, the local press reported.

Police have been unable to find any sign of the man who was thought to have hidden in a room in the Novotel, close to the Barakaldo Megapark commercial center from around 5:25 p.m. local time (1525 GMT) until around 11:00 p.m. local time.

The incident began with what local security forces think was a discussion over a drug deal in the room. Two people were arrested while the third was thought to be armed and still in the room.

The hotel and the immediate vicinity were cordoned off as a security measure, with police stationed both inside the hotel and also in the surrounding streets.

At around 9:30 p.m., members of the Basque police force forced their way into the room wearing bulletproof vests, only to discover it was empty.

The police carried out a search of the hotel with the aid of police dogs, but were still unable to find any sign of the man who had supposedly been in the room and, for the moment, they are unable to discover how he was able to evade capture, if indeed he was there at all.

 source: Xinhua