KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA - Police will send the 23-year-old man who held his girlfriend hostage in Ampang on Friday for psychiatric evaluation soon.

Ampang police chief Assistant Commissioner Abdul Jalil Hassan said: "It is part of our investigation procedure in cases such as this."

So far, police were unable to contact the man's family in Penang through the phone number he had given them.

Checks on his background showed that the man had a criminal record for stealing a motorcycle in Penang when he was 17 years old.

Jalil said Immigration records showed that the man travelled often to Thailand, and that it was likely that the gun the man had used in holding his girlfriend hostage might have been smuggled into the country from there.

The man had worked as a driver for the woman in January, before becoming an assistant at the beauty salon.

The woman was divorced and had rented a car for RM900 a day to be used by the man after her luxury car was involved in an accident.

In Friday's incident, the man held his girlfriend hostage for about two hours before giving up five minutes after talking to the police.

He had allegedly fired three warning shots in the beauty salon located in a two-storey shop lot in Waterfront 3, Jalan Ampang.