Hostage-takers surrender

Press, 19 August 1978, Page 8

Hostage-takers surrender

NZPAdkeuter Chicago, i Two Croatian nationalists!; who held six hostages at i gunpoint in the West Ger- ' man consulate in Chicago for about 10 hours have sur- ' rendered peacefully and released their captives un-L harmed. The men, identified as! Bozo Kelava, aged 35, and; Mile Kodzoman, aged 32, ; had threatened to kill the I hostages — all West Ger-; mans — unless the Bonn Government freed from jail! Stjepan Bilandzic, a Croa-; tian wanted in Yugoslavia! for murder. j. A lower court in Westj. Germany has ruled that Bi-f landzic may be extradited to'. Yugoslavia and he is appeal-! ing against the decision. i! A German vice-consul Werner Ickstadt. said that , Ivan Bilandzic, the jailed' man’s brother, had a long conversation with the hos-tage-takers and shortly afterwards they agreed to surrender. The vice-consul also said the gunmen had been able to talk to Bilandzic in prison from Chicago. “I don’t know what was said because they spoke Croatian, but I bad the impression they were not pleased,” he added. The two gunmen now are

iin Federal Bureau of Investigation custody and will appear before a Federal magistrate in Chicago. They went to the tenth floor of the consulate office onj Thursday morning and said I they wanted to speak to someone about Bilandzic’s ■ legal case in West Germany. I : The receptionist called Mr ■ Ickstadt. “My visitor put a i pistol in my face, shoved a> 'bomb under my chair. and; itold me that ro harm would come to me if Bilandzic was 1 released,” he said. i Eight people were then; Taken hostage, two of whom; iwere released during the! isiege. ' In a telephone conversation during the siege, one of [ ! the gunmen declared that their hostages “would go out, the window” unless Bilandzic was released. The Yugoslav Government has said it wants Bilandzic in connection with a series of attacks on its diplomats and offices abroad, including the murder of a consul-gen-e—il in Dusseldorf two years ago. Various Croatian nationalist groups have demonstrated from time to time demanding that the region known as Croatia be made independent from Yugoslavia.