After killing two people, a gunman who had hijacked a bus with 33 Japanese tourists aboard committed suicide by jumping out of a window at police headquarters while in custody yesterday, police said. He died instantly.
Christos Kendiras, 48, broke a window and jumped from the seventh floor of the building in downtown Athens just before he was to be taken to a prosecutor to be formally charged, authorities said. Police had just finished taking his fingerprints before he died.
On Saturday, Kendiras hijacked a bus with 35 people after killing his mother-in-law and a friend in southern Greece over a family dispute. The hostages, including a Japanese guide and a Greek guide, were freed unharmed after being taken by Kendiras for a 10-hour journey.
Two police officers had been escorting Kendiras yesterday morning until he broke free from them and ran at a window, authorities said. He landed on a second-floor balcony, they added.
``Unfortunately, we had this event, which is not the best thing that could have happened to us,'' said Dimitris Efstathiadis, general secretary of the Public Order Ministry. ``There is no justification after the drama we had yesterday for any relaxation of security measures and to have this happen.''
Public Order Minister Mihalis Chrisohoidis ordered ``an immediate investigation to determine how this occurred,'' Efstathiadis said. ``The minister wants to find out in zero time what happened, to find out what the conditions were that led to him jumping.''
Kendiras was to appear before a public prosecutor in the port of Piraeus where he worked, authorities said.
Distraught because he believed his wife was cheating on him, Kendiras on Saturday shot and killed 77-year-old Georgia Spyrou, his mother-in-law, and Stamatis Taktikos, 44, whom he suspected of being his wife's lover, in the village of Galata, about 200km southwest of Athens.
The car repairman then drove north to Epidauros, the site of a 4th century BC theater that is one of Greece's prime tourist attractions.
There, he set fire to his car and used the blazing wreck and a gun to pull over the bus, which was heading to the theater.
Threatening to kill his hostages, Kendiras took the bus on an all-day trip back and forth along the main highway connecting central and southern Greece. Dozens of police cars, helicopters and ambulances followed the bus.
Kendiras shot at some police vehicles, slightly wounding one officer.
Kendiras demanded he talk to popular television show host Makis Triantafilopoulos.
In a deal arranged with police, Kendiras agreed to surrender himself at Triantafilopoulos' office in Piraeus and free the hostages.
Authorities took the freed passengers to a hotel in Athens afterward.
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