Greek bus hijackers had croissants, not explosives.....

[alicia-w]

Greek Bus Hijackers Had Croissants Not Dynamite

By Brian Williams and Tatiana Fragou

ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece's freed hijack hostages on Thursday portrayed their Albanian captors as bungling criminals just after money who were easily manipulated and armed with croissants, not dynamite.

The bus hostage siege ended peacefully on Thursday when all 23 passengers were freed and police revealed the two hijackers had been bluffing when they threatened to blow up the bus.

Greek officials said training that security forces received in protecting last August's Athens Olympic Games and phone calls to the gunmen from their relatives urging them to give themselves up played key roles in ending the drama.

The hostages said the gunmen who kept them captive for 18 hours were angry young men who seemed bewildered when the hijack went wrong from the first seconds when the driver escaped, activating a secret switch installed for the Olympics that immobilized the vehicle. The hostages said it became easier for them to convince the gunmen to free passengers in batches of two or three as the siege dragged on with no sign of authorities agreeing to a $1 million ransom demand.


"They were vulnerable. We could get around them," said Stella Matara who was among the last six hostages released.


Another hostage, George Vassilas, said even when the gunmen fired shots to keep surrounding police at bay the hijackers assured passengers their anger was not directed at them.


"The hijackers kept saying to us that they would not hurt us, they didn't want to harm us," he said.


Speaking after the end of the siege, which had lasted from dawn on Wednesday until just after midnight on Thursday morning, Greek police chief George Angelakos said the gunmen did not have any explosives despite telling hostages they had dynamite.


Their only weapons were hunting rifles.


"There were no explosives. They just claimed they had explosives to emphasize the fact that they could do harm," Angelakos told reporters.


"Obviously it was money (the $1 million ransom) they were after. They wanted to go to Albania but they said they wanted to go to the airport to blow smoke in our faces."


During the siege, the gunmen made phone calls to Greek media saying they were Russians and wanted to fly to Moscow.


But Angelakos said this was a ruse to try to disguise their identity and stop reprisals against their families.


Vassilas said his wife, also a hostage and a Russian-speaking Ukrainian, knew immediately the hijackers were not Russian.


VICTORY FOR OLYMPIC GAMES TRAINING


Both gunmen were aged 24 and had lived in Greece for six years, coming to the country from Albania, police said.


About 1 million of Greece's 11 million population are Albanian immigrants -- Greece's biggest minority. Many came from the neighboring nation to work on the Athens Olympics.


Negotiators had spoken with the gunmen throughout the day convincing them to release hostages in twos or threes until only six were still left on the bus.


At that stage, the gunmen set an 8 a.m. (0600 GMT) Thursday deadline for their demands to be met and vowed not to release any more hostages. But about four hours after setting the deadline, the bus doors opened without warning and the remaining captives walked to freedom followed seconds later by the gunmen.


The successful end to the drama in which shots were fired when the vehicle was taken over on a road that was used as the route for the Olympic Games was a stunning victory for security forces trained during the Games.


Matara said once hostages realized the gunmen were bluffing about having a bag of explosives they said was dynamite, passengers relaxed, actively taking part in negotiations by putting pressure on the gunmen to release hostages.


"We told them that you already proved you are good people, release another hostage," Matara said.


"As it turned out, the bag was filled with croissants, cigarettes, anything but explosives. How could they blow up the bus. Using cigarettes?" she asked.


"Then they talked to their next of kin, and realized that everything was over. Their identity was known, so they decided to give themselves up."


She said cold was the worst discomfort as temperatures fell below 10 degrees as night closed in on the unheated bus.


"We were afraid of freezing to death."