- Title: GREECE: 35 JAPANESE TOURISTS TAKEN HOSTAGE BY GREEK GUNMAN.
- Date: 4th November 2000
- Summary: NATIONAL HIGHWAY, NEAR KORINTH, SOUTH OF ATHENS, GREECE (NOVEMBER 4 2000) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. LV: LONG VIEW OF BUS WITH JAPANESE TOURISTS ABOARD DRIVING ALONG MOTORWAY 0.07 2. GV: ESCORT CAR DRIVING AHEAD OF BUS 0.09 3. GV/GV/PAN: CLOSER VIEW OF BUS - BUS PASSING 0.47 4. GV: POLICE ESCORT AND MOTORCYCLISTS (2 SHOTS) 1.16
- Embargoed: 19th November 2000 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: NATIONAL HIGHWAY, NEAR KORINTH, SOUTH OF ATHENS, GREECE
- Country: Greece
- Reuters ID: LVA319HFMZRFI6NRWNRUJTAZ8WWA
- Story Text: A Greek gunman has taken 35 Japanese tourists hostage
on a bus south of Athens after a violent family row, and
threatened to kill himself if police tried to intervene.
The 47-year old garage worker hijacked the bus near the
ancient site of Epidavros, south of Athens on Saturday
(November 4), after a family dispute in which his
mother-in-law and a neighbour were killed, police said.
"They will not catch me. I have a nine-shooter in my
pocket just for me," the hijacker, identified by Greek media
as Christos Kendiras, told the private television station
Alpha by mobile phone. It was not clear if he meant a
9-millimetre pistol or a gun containing nine rounds.
There was no immediate word on his demands, whether he had
made threats against the hostages or whether anyone on the bus
had been hurt. Police had initially said there were 50
tourists on the bus.
The hijacker, who sounded agitated, shot at a policeman on
a motorcycle trying to approach the bus to negotiate. The
officer did not appear to have been hurt.
Kendiras initially ordered the bus to drive towards Athens
but stopped and turned back at a police road block near the
town of Corinth.
He told television he had hijacked the bus after a fight
with his wife, family and friends in the town of Galatas on
the Peloponnese peninsula.
He then drove to near Epidavros, set his own car on fire
and hijacked the bus.
"There is no other way out. That's why I have resorted to
this," he said.
About a dozen police cars were following the bus, which
was driving very slowly. Police were communicating with
Kendiras using the Greek bus driver's mobile phone.
Greece has suffered from a spate of hijackings over the
past year. In separate incidents, armed Albanian men hijacked
buses in northern Greece and demanded to be taken to Albania.
A tourist yacht chartered by a Swiss family was also
hijacked in July off the Peloponnese coast. Greek coastguards
shot dead the gunman, who wanted to sail the boat to Morocco.
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