Armed Man Takes 20 Luxembourg Children Hostage

O

Oatka

New member
Check out how Reuters waters down the event.
"Presstitutes" indeed.

First story -
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a393552976962.htm#1

May 31, 2000 Armed Man Takes 20 Luxembourg Children Hostage

Filed at 1:29 p.m. ET

By Reuters

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - A man armed with a pistol, hand grenade and knife took hostage 20 nursery school children and their two teachers in a school in eastern Luxembourg on Wednesday, police said.

Security forces cordoned off the building in the village of Wasserbillig on the Luxembourg-German border but have not yet spoken to the man, who stormed the building around 1:30 p.m. GMT.

The identity and motive of the gunman were not immediately clear, police spokesman Victor Schlentz told Reuters.

-- 30 --

By time I clicked on the URL, the story was this --
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-luxembo.html

Police Predict Peaceful End to Luxembourg Siege

By Reuters
WASSERBILLIG, Luxembourg (Reuters) - Police said on Thursday they were confident the 29 hostages being held by a heavily-armed man in a daycare center in eastern Luxembourg would be freed without violence in the coming hours.

Police spokesman Jos Schmit told reporters police were in intensive negotiations with the man, who has demanded a plane and safe passage to Libya.

Schmit said the gunman was calm and police had again revised the total hostage figure to 29 from 32.

Most of the hostages are children under the age of eight.
 
This can't happen ... everyone tells me how Europe is so much more civilized than we are, with much more modern and 'reasonable' firearms laws.

Tomorrow they'll issue a retraction. This must simply have been a garbled weather report from Luxembourg.

Regards from AZ

[This message has been edited by Jeff Thomas (edited June 01, 2000).]
 
Jeff,

I can tell you jsut got back from the AGCA board. What a mess... :rolleyes:

------------------
John/az
"When freedom is at stake, your silence is not golden, it's yellow..." RKBA!
www.cphv.com
 
http://cnews.tribune.com/news/tribune/story/0,1235,tribune-nation-64769,00.html

Update -

Hostage taker shot; children freed

By Paul Ames
The Associated Press
June 1, 2000 1:43 p.m. CDT

WASSERBILLIG, Luxembourg (AP) -- Police stormed a day care center today, shooting a hostage-taker and freeing 25 children and three teachers and ending a 30-hour standoff. All those freed were reported safe.

There were conflicting reports whether the gunman was killed or injured.

"Everything is over. Everybody is fine," said Jose Lello, a Portuguese minister who came to Luxembourg because many of the children hostages were Portuguese.

The assault on the center started with two shots before security officials stormed the building. Several more explosions were heard, possibly from smoke bombs. Afterward, there were conflicting reports about the fate of the hostage-taker.

Local councilman Jean Keyser said the hostage taker "was shot but not dead," and Portuguese official Manuel Casanova said the gunman was shot in the head and critically wounded. But Lello told reporters the 39-year-old gunman was killed.

The children were taken to a crisis center where the parents were being counseled. Casanova said "there were immediate outbursts of joy" when families of captives heard about the successful raid. "It was very emotional," he said.

Shortly after the day care center was stormed, two helicopters flew low near the building, but it was unclear what they were carrying.

Police and psychiatrists had struggled for most of the day to convince the lone hostage-taker brandishing a gun and grenade to release the captives and drop his demand to fly to Libya.

Police said the man has a history of mental illness, and residents of this small town near the German border said he blamed the day care center for the fact that he lost custody of his two children.

The standoff began Wednesday afternoon. The man seized 37 children at the day care center in Wasserbillig, a town of 2,300 people in eastern Luxembourg. A teacher managed to smuggle six or seven other children out of the center just after the hostage-taker entered the building, police said.

Parents of the captive children were counseled by police psychologists at a local art building which was converted to a crisis center. They were kept informed throughout the night by regular police updates, said Joao Carlos Alves Pereira, whose 7-year-old daughter had been among the captives.

"When I heard about it, I just about went crazy. I just couldn't sleep," Pereira, who spent the night in the crisis center, said before the children were released.

Late Wednesday night, the man released eight children, who were returned to their parents in good condition. He then demanded the plane and $1.38 million, but he later dropped his demand for the money, police divisional commissioner Andree Colas said.

In the hours before police stormed the center, the gunman had released four more children.

The standoff shocked this normally quiet corner of Europe. Violent crimes are rare in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, which lies between Belgium, Germany and France.

"I was working. I didn't know anything about it. I got home, and the police were everywhere," said Seraphine Freitas, the father of two children, ages 7 and 8, who were among the hostages.

Authorities believe the kidnapper's own two children had at one time attended the same day care center, located behind the town square in a quiet, secluded residential neighborhood.

They said the man was married and came from a neighboring village. Local residents said he blamed the day care center and held a grudge against its director for the fact that he lost custody of his children when he separated from his wife.

Copyright 2000 The Associated Press
 
A followup article.

The press is getting kind of petty here. I doubt the tactic used by the police in this incident will make the job of reporters anymore dangerous around the world.
Jeff


  Police Chided in Luxembourg Standoff
By Constant Brand
Associated Press Writer
Saturday, June 3, 2000; 1:15 a.m. EDT
BRUSSELS, Belgium –– The world's largest journalists' group has asked that Luxembourg police tactics be investigated after officers posing as a TV crew lured a gunman into an ambush to end a hostage crisis. One journalism professor, however, said he would excuse the deception because lives were saved.
When the gunman emerged for an "interview" Thursday holding a child in one arm and a grenade in the other, police posing as cameramen shot him twice in the head. That led to the rescue of 25 children and three adults held hostage for about 30 hours.
"These are disturbing tactics," cautioned Aidan White, general secretary of the Brussels-based International Federation of Journalists, which represents more than 450,000 journalists worldwide.
"Each year many journalists die reporting on incidents of violence. ... Their life is dangerous enough without adding to their difficulties," White said Friday in a statement.
Luxembourg police defended their strategy, saying it minimized the threat to the hostages. Interior Minister Michel Wolter said the hostage-taker's demand for TV airtime gave police an opportunity to get a clear shot.
Northeastern University journalism professor Nicholas Daniloff said the tactic was "a case of deception, and journalists as a whole try not to be deceptive."
And Fred Brown, chairman of the Society for Professional Journalists' Ethics Committee, agreed.
"This just adds to the sense that journalists are not always what or who they appear to be," he said.
Still, Daniloff said the situation called for extreme measures. Since the hostages were freed unharmed and the hostage-taker arrested, Daniloff said he would be inclined to forgive this case.
"This was a question of saving lives," he said. "You can argue that the results justified what was done."
Hostage-taker Neji Bejaoui, an unemployed Tunisian immigrant, was shot at the day-care center in Wasserbillig, a village of 2,300 people in eastern Luxembourg.
Bejaoui was recovering from his injuries Friday after surgery, and police said his wounds were no longer life-threatening.
Authorities released details Friday about the 39-year-old gunman who brandished a pistol, a hand grenade and a knife as he seized his hostages Wednesday.
The Luxembourg government said Bejaoui had a history of violence and was convicted of assault in 1998. He had been seeing a psychiatrist for several years. Its statement called Bejaoui "very unstable" and said he suffers from paranoia and craves attention.
The statement said Bejaoui, who lived in the nearby village of Manternach and obtained Luxembourgish nationality in 1991, was seeking to avenge a 1994 decision to deny him custody of his two children. Residents of Wasserbillig said he blamed the day-care center for the loss of custody when he and his wife separated.
Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker said police were forced to act when Bejaoui demanded to flee in a car with three children. The government said the decision to act also came after Bejaoui brought crying children to the telephone, then refused to speak to police negotiators.
Police then sent in the two officers disguised as journalists with Radio Television Luxembourg. Col. Pierre Reuland of the Luxembourg police said the force requisitioned cameras and other equipment from RTL.
He refused to comment on reports police had used a gun hidden in a camera, but RTL Station Manager Vic Reuter said the camera was returned with no damage.
"We got a legal request, so we had no opportunity to refuse it," Reuter told The Associated Press. "They wouldn't tell us what it was for. We discovered the use just like the rest of the journalists, only after it had happened."
Reuter said he had mixed feelings about the operation.
"Of course we are happy we could contribute (to the rescue). On the other hand, we are journalists and are conscious of the fact this might have consequences," he said.
Bejaoui seized 37 children and the three teachers Wednesday at the Sparrow's Nest center. He released eight children that day and then demanded a flight to take him to Libya. He freed two toddlers Thursday morning and two more around noon, leaving three adults and 25 children aged 2 to 11 as hostages.
 
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