ATHENS, NOV 4: A greek gunman was holding 35 Japanese tourists hostage on a bus south of Athens on Saturday after a violent family row and threatened to kill them one by one if police tried to intervene.The 47-year-old garage worker hijacked the bus near the ancient site of Epidavros, south of Athens, after killing his mother-in-law and a neighbour, police said.``Tell the police chief to stop all these cars following me because I will raise them (hostages) from their seats one after another and execute them,'' he told Antenna Television by mobile phone.Police said the hijacker, Christos Kendiras, had a hunting rifle, which they believed, he used to kill the two people in his home town earlier, and a pistol.Greek Public Order Ministry General-Secretary Dimitri Sefstathiadis visited the Japanese Ambassador in Athens to brief him on the hostage crisis.``I have informed the Japanese Embassy that all the hostages are in good health,'' he told reporters.Police said special psychologists had been assigned to the case. Greek media reported the hijacker's estranged wife had been brought to police headquarters to help communicate with the agitated gunman.``They will not catch me. I have a nine-shooter in my pocket just for me,'' the hijacker told the private television station Alpha by mobile phone. It was not clear if he meant a 9-millimetre pistol or a gun containing nine rounds.The hijacker shot at a policeman on a motorcycle trying to approach the bus to negotiate. The officer did not appear to have been hurt.Kendiras initially ordered the bus to drive towards Athens but stopped and turned back at a police road block near the town of Corinth.He told television he had hijacked the bus after a fight with his wife, family and friends in the town of Galatas on the Peloponnese Peninsula.He then drove close to Epidavros, set his own car on fire and hijacked the bus.``There is no other way out. That's why I have resorted to this,'' he said.About a dozen police cars were following the bus, which was driving very slowly. Police were communicating with Kendiras using the Greek bus driver's mobile phone.Greece has suffered a spate of hijackings over the past year. In separate incidents, armed Albanian men hijacked buses in northern Greece and demanded to be taken to Albania.A tourist yacht chartered by a Swiss family was also hijacked in July off the Peloponnese coast. Greek coastguards shot dead the gunman, who wanted to sail to Morocco.
