A woman in Hamburg has made a remarkable escape after being held hostage in a homemade "torture chamber" booby-trapped with what police fear were improvised bombs made from fire extinguishers. Local police said the 26-year-old Israeli woman was kidnapped at gunpoint by Thomas Fischer, a vague acquaintance, on Friday night and taken, handcuffed, to his flat in Barmbek, a suburb of the city, local police have revealed. Detectives believe Fischer, 30, intended to torture his victim in a yellow, soundproofed phone box he had somehow installed in his cramped living room. But two hours into her ordeal â at about 9.45pm â the woman escaped when his back was turned. She dived out of a window he had laced with barbed wire â with her hands still bound together. Police said neighbours then raised the alarm. Fischer was arrested a short time later, carrying a hand grenade and a loaded 9mm gun. While searching the house, investigators found a cache of worrying items including gynaecological implements, syringes and a metal helmet. They also discovered 113 fire extinguishers, which they feared had been turned into bombs after they discovered that Fischer's hand grenade contained a homemade, "highly explosive" substance, Mirko Streiber, a police spokesman, told the media. Explosives were detected on nine of the fire extinguishers investigated so far, reported the Süddeutsche Zeitung, which added that 109 local residents were evacuated from homes nearby. Comparisons have inevitably been made with Natascha Kampusch, the Austrian girl who was kept hostage in a windowless basement for almost nine years. Police said Fischer had been investigated five times in 2009 for suspected stalking, but no charges were brought. He met his alleged victim in May and the pair had kept up irregular contact. "They weren't in a relationship," a police spokeswoman told the Süddeutsche Zeitung. The woman told police that Fischer had visited her at home early on Friday evening and suddenly threatened her with a gun, before marching her to his flat. Neighbours told reporters that Fischer was a withdrawn man who was nonetheless friendly enough to collect their post. When they asked why he was securing the windows of his ground floor flat with barbed wire â and why he had installed a security camera by his front door â he apparently told them it was to deter burglars. Police are trying to establish whether Fischer had an accomplice. The Süddeutsche Zeitung said detectives do not believe that he would have been able to carry the telephone box into his flat on his own, nor the wooden beams that were found in the flat, apparently to barricade the door and windows.
