Athens hostage crisis unfolds
Greek police tested by hostage-taking incident on a bus in Athens.
A Greek police force faced what
The Associated Press called its "first test" since undergoing intensive training for this past summer's Olympics when two armed men seized a bus full of passengers Wednesday in the country's fifth such hijacking since 1999.
AP reports that two men "
hijacked a bus carrying more than two dozen passengers [in Athens] early Wednesday, threatening to blow it up with explosives unless they were taken to the airport and put on a plane to Russia, police and government officials said."
The men have been identified by officials in the Athens prosecutor's office as Albanians with criminal records in Greece, according to
AP.
The bus driver, a ticket inspector and a passenger escaped soon after, and 10 other hostages were released over the next 11 hours of the standoff, officials said. ... The hijackers were armed with at least one pump action shotgun, which they were seen firing out of a bus window. It was unclear if they actually had explosives. ...
Government officials would not confirm reports that the men also were demanding $1.33 million in euros.
"They want a driver to take them to the airport. They want to go to Russia," said a hostage, who identified herself as Stella Matara. "They don't want money or anything else. They have guns and dynamite. I don't know what kind. They are treating us well."
Albanian Ambassador Bashkim Zeneli told
AP that Greek police asked for his help because they told him "they are 99 percent sure the hijackers are Albanians."
The New York Times, however, reports that one of the hijackers
told a Greek television station that he was Russian. The Chinese news service
Xinhua reports that bus company chief Nikos Koutsogeorgas said earlier that the
hijackers were Russians.
The
Times reports the initial hijacking this way:
The bus was making its regular Marathon to Athens run when the two men got on at a regular stop on the outskirts of Athens before dawn. They brandished shotguns and announced they also had explosives in a tote bag, according to the police.
The bus driver then slammed on the brakes, opened the doors and fled with the keys. A ticket collector and a female passenger also escaped.
A
Voice of America reports says the hostage-takers fired shots into the roof of the bus shortly after they boarded.
By nightfall, the gunmen had
released more than half of the orignal 23 held, reports
Reuters.
As night fell, 12 hours after the early morning drama began, the gunmen had released 12 hostages in several batches through the day leaving 11 – six men and five women – still captive.
The BBC reports that "the crisis led Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis to
delay his departure for an EU summit in Brussels."
VOA points out that "Greece has had experience of
several bus hostage takings in recent years."
Earlier this year, a man held a bus driver a gunpoint for an hour before surrendering. Four years ago, a local man took over a bus carrying Japanese tourists, before he too surrendered.
In 1999, Albanian men took over two buses in separate incidents. In one, the hostage taker was shot dead by Greek police after a two-day standoff. In the other, the bus crossed to Albania, where special forces stormed the bus, killing the hostage taker and a passenger.
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