A man in his 40s wielding what appeared to be a pistol took a hostage Tuesday and holed up in the governor's suite on the 14th floor of the Tokyo Stock Exchange building, demanding to meet with the finance minister, police said.The man, clad in a business suit, took captive Masahiro Abe, 50, an exchange official on loan from the Finance Ministry, the Metropolitan Police Department said. The man is believed to be a 41-year-old rightist group affiliate.The hostage-taker issued a statement demanding a halt to Tuesday afternoon trading and a meeting with Finance Minister Hiroshi Mitsuzuka, police sources said. The 14th floor accommodates meeting rooms, executive suites and the Finance Ministry's TSE office.The MPD said the man produced a business card in the TSE lobby, seeking a meeting with exchange officials around 1 p.m. Tuesday. An employee who escorted him to the suite told police that Abe met with the man. The employee then heard what sounded like a gunshot soon afterward.According to the employee, Abe yelled to TSE workers from inside the closed-door suite door, "I'm OK. He (the intruder) is asking police to stay away from the 14th floor." Outside the TSE complex in the Nihonbashi-Kabutocho district, police vehicles surrounded the area and the entrance was sealed off to limit entry."I cannot believe someone like him was able to get in this time of day," said a police official who rushed to the exchange. Police asked TSE officials for use of one of their offices to set up a frontline headquarters. The TSE complex is located in a bustling business district, about 150 meters from Kayabacho Station on the Tozai subway line.
