Hotel Hostage-Taking May Have Been Fake

Gunmen who claimed to be holding several people in a small hotel surrendered, and officials suggested that the two-day standoff in the Black Sea town of Lazarevskoye in southern Russia might have been a fake hostage-taking started on a drunken whim. The gunmen had demanded $30 million and a helicopter. After the three surrendered, they were charged with hostage-taking, a regional official said. But First Deputy Interior Minister Vladimir Kozlov said he believed that the gunmen “playacted a hostage-taking, which, in fact, didn’t take place.”