Robbers captured; one wounded

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32803, 31 December 1971, Page 1

Robbers captured; one wounded

(N.Z.P. A. -Reuter—Copyright)

SAARBRUCKEN (West Germany)., December 30s

The wounded leader of a trio of bank robbers, who told the policemen who shot him, “I would be happy if I. die” was in fair condition today with liver and stomach injuries. The wounded man is shown above after being shot by police.

As a spokesman for nearby Hamburg University Clinic gave the report on the ringleader, Kurt Vicenik, a 44-year-old Viennese, police were praised for their handling of events since the trio robbed a Cologne Bank on Monday.

The three men—the other two were identified as; Charles Laurent Donadio, aged 34, and Antoine Francois Mattei, aged 24, both French—got away with 300,000 marks ($65,576) and two policemen as their hostages for safe passage. The hostages were released after driving the bandits to a heavily wooded area in the Saarland. In the next two days on the run, the bandits were hunted by helicopters and police dogs, and seized two more hostages. The end came yesterday in a car park in the nearby village of Baltersweiler when the three men, spotted by police, made a desparate bid

for freedom and tried to exchange their remaining hostage for a helicopter. Heart trouble

Police said that Vicenik, who apparently has heart trouble, demanded a getaway helicopter and a policeman in exchange for his hostage, a 21-year-old machin-

ist, Karl Friedrich Bach, whose car the trio had commandeered. During the negotiations, with the two Frenchmen sitting in the car training their semi-automatic machine pis-

tols at the hostage and police, Senior Police Commissioner Julius Gross pulled a pistol and cut down Vicenik with a single shot. Mr Gross told a press conference that Vicenik was regarded as the strong man of the gang. “We believed if he were put out of action the other two would give up.” He said that the decision was taken to “finish the game off one way or another,” and he pulled his pistol to make Vicenik drop his gun. “Vicenik made a reflex

movement to aim at me and at that moment I fired. I ran to the door of the car, yanked it open and pulled back (the hostage) into the ditch.”

Fire was exchanged briefly, but no-one else was injured. The two Frenchmen are expected to be transferred to Cologne later today.

Mr Gross said that Vicenik, as he lay wounded, murmured: “I would be happy if I die. I have not got much' longer to live, anyway."

Other robbery

The Cologne robbery was

reminiscent of a bank raid earlier this year in Munich, where the robber also used hostages in a bid for freedom. Police then were sharply criticised for opening fire and killing one of the bandits—who, as he fell, shot dead a young woman hostage.

Commenting on the latest episode, the Christian Democratic Opposition Leader, Mr Rainer Barzel, said: “Things can’t continue the way they are. We are all committed to a state of law and order. Criminality and political radicalism must be fought with the greatest vigour by all Democrats acting together."

Reaction in the West German press was generally favourable, with many papers braising police for preventing “a second Munich massacre.”