POLICE WAIT FOR GUNMEN

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33962, 1 October 1975, Page 17

POLICE WAIT FOR GUNMEN

(N.Z.P. A. -Reuter—Copyright) LONDON, September 30. Police besieging a London restaurant for the third consecutive day said today that they would continue their waiting game until three gunmen holding six men hostage in a basement storeroom surrendered peacefully.

Commander Christopher Payne told reporters: “We are prepared to go on with the waiting game all day today, but there is always a possibility that they might surrender during the night.”

He said that the three gunmen, two Jamaicans and a Nigerian, armed with a sawnoff shotgun and two pistols, seemed to be determined to stay in the small room below the Spaghetti House restaurant in London’s fashionable Knightsbridge district. The gunmen tried to rob the restaurant of £II,OOO at 1.46 a.m. on Sunday but were trapped by police who arrived within minutes.

They herded eight men, all Italian employees of the restaurant, into the storeroom and locked themselves in. Two of their hostages have since been released unharmed. Police are convinced that the raid was not politically motivated and have adopted a tough "no bargains" policy.

Yesterday, the gunmen demanded a plane to fly them out of Britain but police refused to comply.

Police officers guided by psychiatrists, Italian and Jamaican diplomats, and coloured community leaders, have all unsuccessfully tried to persuade the gunmen to give themselves up. The gang and the hostages are sweating in a tiny storeroom where temperatures have risen to around 38 degrees Celsius because police have switched off the air conditioning units. There is no proper ventilation in the room and no running water, but plenty of canned food is stored on scaffolds along the walls, and police are providing water, coffee, and cigarettes. A report in the “Daily Mirror” newspaper said today that one of the gunmen, the Nigerian, had served a gaol term for bank robbery.