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BERLIN (AP) — Police say a hostage taker at a German bank has freed the employee he was holding and turned himself in after a nine-hour standoff with police.

Berlin police said Saturday officials convinced the man, who had apparently sought to rob the bank Friday evening, to free the 40-year-old employee and turn himself in. Nobody was injured. Police had deployed several hundred officers to the scene of the Deutsche Bank branch in Berlin's Zehlendorf neighborhood, which was cordoned off in a wide perimeter.

The hostage taker, whose identity was not released, had asked for money and safe passage. Local media reported he threatened using a bomb to blow up the bank. Police decline to comment on those reports.