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Siemens employee in Beijing carjacks taxi, dies
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BEIJING, CHINA – A German man who worked for Siemens in Beijing is dead after carjacking a taxi, state media reported Monday.
Identified only as Thomas, the carjacking occurred on Saturday around 4:00 a.m. A taxi driver reported that a woman hailed his taxi near the Holiday Inn Lido in the Wangjing neighborhood. She asked the driver to take her to Baiziwan in south Beijing. Some press reports identified the passenger as being from Mongolia and others said she was from South Korea.
Suddenly, Thomas dragged the taxi driver out of the car and took possession of the vehicle with the passenger still in the back seat. Beijing police said Thomas crashed the taxi into a tree near Siyuan Bridge at about 5:30 a.m. Police said the taxi was traveling in the wrong direction before it crossed the road barrier and crashed into a willow tree. The collision created a 15 centimeter-deep hole in the tree's trunk.
Thomas was killed instantly and the passenger was injured. Authorities have not said if the hijacker and the passenger knew each other.
A passport confirmed the man was from Germany and was 21 years old. He had red hair and tattoos. He also had a Siemens employee badge. The Siemens office in Beijing is located in Wangjing, not far from where the carjacking occurred.
The German Embassy in Beijing and representatives for Siemens couldn’t be reached for comment.
The injured passenger was taken to the China-Japan Friendship Hospital for treatment. The woman suffered leg and eye injuries, but was discharged from the hospital.
Beijing recently stepped up safety for the city's 70,000 cabs and installed a GPS terminals to track the car's position. The cabs also have a fuel cutoff, in case of fire, which can be activated by the companies control center.
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