Bus hijackers release some prisoners

Hijackers who stormed a Greek bus with about 27 people aboard early today released four prisoners as negotiations got underway.

After about five hours, the hijackers freed one hostage.

A man in his 50s, wearing a black shirt and trousers, was seen getting off the bus and into a police jeep.

The man had apparently been released on medical grounds. A few minutes later, a limping woman in a long black skirt was also freed.

Then another man and a woman were released from the bus.

The vehicle was surrounded by patrol cars and ambulances at a stop just over 10 miles from the city centre on the outskirts of eastern Athens.

Initial reports said that at least two people armed with shotguns apparently took control of the bus just before dawn. The bus driver managed to escape, according to officials.

Reporters on the scene heard what sounded like two shotgun blasts about an hour after the bus was taken over at about 6am local time (4am Irish time) outside a nightclub.

At least two shots had been fired at police, who arrived at the scene shortly after the takeover.

“The demand of the perpetrators is for us to give them a bus driver. We are letting police deal with this,” Nikos Koutsogeorgas, president of the public bus company, told Athens’ Skai radio. “It seems the bus driver’s action to abandon the bus was positive.”

The bus was en route from the town of Marathon, east of Athens, to the city centre when it was hijacked at a stop in the suburb of Geraka.

The bus stop was on a road that had been renovated for the Olympic Games and used for the Marathon race, the 26.2-mile course from ancient Marathon to central Athens.