Man drove stolen car through airport window

A DRIVER has been shot and wounded by police after crashing a stolen car carrying his wife and three children through a departure terminal window at Milan airport then threatening officers with a knife.

Police at Malpensa airport ruled out any terrorist motive for the incident yesterday but refused to give further details.

Unconfirmed reports said the man was trying to stop his wife from getting on a plane and was in the middle of a heated argument when the crash occurred.

The Tunisian man was accompanied by his wife and three children, ranging in age from five to 10, when it crashed into the airport.

Airport worker Luigi Pagani was just yards away when the car’s bonnet smashed through the departure terminal’s window.

“I thought initially it was an accident. It wasn’t like they smashed through the window and erupted armed into the terminal,” he said.

A few moments passed, “then he came out of the vehicle the knife well-exposed. We didn’t ask a lot of questions. We thought only of getting away”.

Police confirmed that the man was a Tunisian and had been shot by an officer. He was being treated at hospital.

The airport was briefly evacuated but had resumed normal operations by early afternoon.

Police said the driver was brandishing the knife as he approached a group of police on patrol inside the terminal. One shot the man’s foot when he refused to drop it.

Statements by the man and his Italian wife made little sense, and failed to explain the action, police said.

“A Tunisian man... who was in a car with his wife and three children tried to smash into the terminal,” a security source the airport later said.

“He then got out of the car with a knife in his hand and threatened a police officer. The officer tried to calm him,” he said.

“When the man threw his knife at the officer, the officer shot him in the foot,” the source added.

The Tunisian “did not have terrorist intentions,” Giuseppe Bonomi, head of the SEA airport authority in Milan, told a press conference soon after the attack.

The man had acted in a “moment of madness”.

The attacker was treated at a hospital, then taken to jail, the policeman said. The Tunisian’s motive was not known.