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Drunken Siberian Holds Mayor Hostage

A drunken sanitarium worker took a Siberian mayor hostage with two hand grenades and tried to storm a law enforcement building before police commandos arrested him Thursday.

No one was injured in the incident.

Igor Golubev, 39, a resident of the Irkutsk region town of Usolye-Sibirskoye, jumped into the car of Mayor Yevgeny Kustos, unpinned the grenades and ordered the mayor to drive to the office of local prosecutors and investigators, Irkutsk regional investigators said in a statement.

Kustos said Golubev, a former leader of the Liberal Democratic Party's local branch, said to him, "Let's go kill the prosecutor — he doesn't react to complaints," Komsomolskaya Pravda reported.

When the car reached the destination, the mayor managed to get into the building first and order security guards to lock the doors.

Investigators and prosecutors were evacuated through a staff exit.

Golubev handed the grenades to his elder brother after he was surrounded by the police, Komsomolskaya Pravda reported, without explaining how the brother arrived at the scene.

Golubev faces possible charges of seizing a hostage with the use of a weapon and illegal weapons possession. If charged and convicted, he faces up to 15 years in prison for the first charge and up to four for the second.

Separately, a 73-year-old woman from the Siberian city of Omsk injured a local prosecutor with an ax that she threw at him after he refused to accept a complaint Tuesday, Omsk prosecutors said.

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