5 Feb 2013

Alabama kidnapper dead, boy saved after police raid

10:00 pm on 5 February 2013

A kidnapper in the American state of Alabama has died after police raided his bunker to save a five-year-old boy he'd held captive for six days.

The 65-year-old man had been keeping the boy in a storm shelter after abducting him from a school bus and shooting dead the driver.

Negotiations had begun to falter and officials, fearing the child was in imminent danger, stormed the bunker.

It is unclear how the kidnapper died, but the child is believed to be unharmed and has been reunited with his family.