Bank robbers held police hostages

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32801, 29 December 1971, Page 1

Bank robbers held police hostages

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

SAARBRUECKEN (West Germany), December 28. Hundreds of police ringed a fog-bound forest today hoping to catch three bandits who grabbed a Cologne bank’s Christmas takings in a robbery involving hostages and a cross-country car chase.

Thousands more police were on the alert throughout the Saarland for the gunmen, who used a sawn-off shotgun to seize two hostages when they robbed the Cologne bank of about $65,000.

The robbery was followed by a car chase to the French border, with a convoy of police and journalists trailing the bandits. The Associated Press said the trio criss-crossed the frontier area, looking for an easy escape route to France. But the frontier roads were well guarded and their hostages balked at crossing the border, authorities said.

Senior police The gunmen took two senior policemen as hostages instead of the two bank employees they initially wanted. Then the bank supplied them with a mini-bus when police shot away the tyres of their own getaway car. Two of the bandits are believed to be Frenchmen, and French police, just across the border, are taking part in the hunt. The third gunman—the group’s leader—was identified by police last night as Austrian-born Kurt Vicenik. During the dash for the border—where French authorities turned back the bandits—the hostage policemen took turns in driving the mini-bus while the captive police chief, Mr Werner Hamcher, paid for petrol during a refuelling stop. Hostages freed After a seven-hour chase, the bandits released their

hostages unharmed. Gathering fog and darkness last night prevented the police from entering the forest where the robbers were thought to be hiding. But police did not rule out the possibility that the bandits might already have slipped through the cordon.

The police said that before their colleagues were released, the bandits had turned

down an offer of a 20-minute start in exchange for the hostages. They merely said the hostages were freed "for other reasons” which they refused to disclose. At a press conference last night, Mr Hammacher said that the police had hoped the bandits would get themselves into precisely the situation they were now in. He said that he had been persistently threatened with a sawn-off shotgun on the road from Cologne, although neither hostage was tied up. But he added: “We didn’t feel too good, just the same.’’