Gunmen Hijack Bus

[DBAHO]

TWO gunmen hijacked a bus with 26 passengers on board in an Athens suburb early today and were reportedly demanding a $1.76 million ransom and to be flown to Russia.

 

The two men, armed with rifles, boarded the bus in the early hours, firing shots into its roof and halting the vehicle, a government spokesman said.

 

About six hours after the drama unfolded, the hijackers released two men and three women, one of whom told the private Greek radio station Skai that a ransom demand of one million euros had been made.

 

A police officer at the scene told AFP authorities were aware of the report, but the hostage-takers had not made any such demand in their negotiations.

 

The security attache at the Albanian embassy here was quoted by local media as saying the two men were Albanian, rather than Russian as they claimed.

 

However, Albania's ambassador to Greece, Bashkim Zeneli, who went to the scene, refused to confirm the men's identities when contacted by AFP, adding he had been unable to speak with the hostage-takers.

 

A top Greek police official had earlier identified the gunmen as Russian and said they had demanded to be flown to Russia.

 

One of the hostage-takers who contacted the private radio station Alpha said his name was Hassan and declared: "We want to go to Russia."

 

The drama began at 5.45 am (local time) when the two men stormed the bus on a thoroughfare in the suburb of Gerakas. The driver, the ticket collector and a woman passenger managed to escape.

 

Five hostages, including a man who suffered from heart problems were released shortly before midday, leaving 21 hostages on the bus, which was surrounded by crack police units and snipers. Several ambulances were also parked nearby.

 

The gunmen later allowed two more of their original 26 hostages to leave the vehicle, Reuters correspondents at the scene said.

 

The departures of another man and women, three hours after the first batch of five hostages were released, left 19 hostages still on the bus.

 

The private radio station Alpha said someone claiming to be one of the hostage-takers had called it via a mobile phone taken from a woman passenger on the bus.

 

The caller spoke fluent Greek with a slight accent and demanded that police move away from the vehicle so it could be driven to the airport, located about 15km away, the radio said.

 

Bus company president Nikos Koutsogiorgas said no-one had been injured and police negotiators were talking with the hostage-takers to try to end the drama.

 

Police said they had provided the men with a mobile telephone to maintain contact.

 

One of the hostages reached on his mobile phone by local media said the hijackers had a sawn-off shotgun, a pistol and a bag filled with grenades.

 

The hostage-takers had drawn the curtains and were occasionally firing in the air from its windows.

 

The bus was running a night service from the city of Marathon to Athens.

 

Greece has a recent history of bus hijackings.

 

May 1999: A 25-year-old Albanian hijacks a bus in northern Greece and forces it to be driven to Albania in a 600km chase. Eight hostages survive the incident but the hijacker and a Greek passenger are killed by police.

 

July 1999: An armed Albanian seizes a bus in northern Greece and demands $US780,000 ($1 million) ransom and safe passage to Albania. Greek police, wary of the previous incident, stop the bus in Greece. The hijacker is shot dead when police sneak aboard after a 30-hour standoff.

 

November 2000: A Greek gunman hijacks a busload of elderly Japanese tourists. The nine-hour ordeal ends peacefully when the hijacker surrenders to a television talk show host.

[KipWellsFan]

Surrender 18 hours later

 

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