Teen with fake gun storms Dutch TV station

A teenager armed with a fake gun disrupted the Dutch national broadcaster NOS on Thursday evening when he forced his way into the building and demanded airtime before being overpowered by police.

Nobody was injured in the incident, near Amsterdam, but it forced NOS off air for about an hour and set the Netherlands on edge, coming just weeks after the deadly attack on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris that left 12 people dead.

When NOS returned to broadcasting, it showed recorded footage of the Dutch-speaking young man, wearing a black suit, white shirt and black tie and carrying a pistol with what looked like a silencer attached.

Police said later the gun was a fake and that the 19-year-old had no criminal record. Detectives were investigating his possible motives. He was arrested without a struggle and taken to a nearby police station for questioning. Prosecutor Johan Bac said the teen was from the small town of Pijnacker near The Hague.

Bac said he was being held on suspicion of making a threat, weapon possession and taking a hostage. The suspect’s name was not released by the prosecutor. Officials said they were still investigating the teen’s background and the seriousness of the threat he posed.

Jan de Jong, the director of NOS, said that the headquarters had extra security in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo attack. The NOS offices have been been tightly guarded since Pim Fortuyn, a Dutch anti-immigration politician, was killed in a parking lot by an animal-rights activist in 2002.

Al Jazeera and wire services