A FOUR-hour hostage drama ended on Sunday with police snipers shooting dead a 42-year-old Vereeniging man. The saga began when Koos Ackerman shot his wife, identified only as Mrs Van Aswegen, in the left shoulder. When police and paramedics arrived, Ackerman disarmed a police officer amid a hail of fire before hijacking a passing motorist and roaring off with his injured wife and a paramedic. After a high-speed chase which ended at the home of Ackerman’s step-children in Primrose, Germiston, hostage negotiators tried to intervene. But Ackerman was “very aggressive and unpredictable”. He was then shot once in the upper body by a police sniper, killing him. Ackerman was out on bail for allegedly shooting and wounding his daughter on February 4.