Diplomat killed

Press, 9 October 1987, Page 6

Diplomat killed

NZPA-Reuter Brussels Armed Belgian police sealed off the Syrian Embassy after the killing of a senior Syrian diplomat outside his home. Antonios Hanna, the embassy’s first secretary, was shot by a gunman in broad daylight in a fashionable Brussels suburb and died soon afterwards. Witnesses said the gunmen fired several shots and then ran off to a nearby car, where an accomplice was waiting. Two hours after the attack reporters found the previously unguarded embassy sealed off by police armed with machine guns. The police declined to comment on the security measures. Olivier Schaeffer, aged 18, a freelance photographer living in the same street as Mr

Hanna, said he beard three muted shots. “I thought it was kids playing, but then I heard a woman scream,” be said. “I rushed to the window and saw the man lying on the ground. The screaming woman was standing next to him with a baby on her arm.” He said he recognised the woman as Mr Hanna’s wife, who was carrying their young child. Shortly after the shooting, an anonymous caller telephoned the Belgian news agency, Belga, to claim the attack in the name of the “Syrian Mujahedin,” describing Mr Hanna as “an agent of the secret services”. Belga said a spokesman at the Syrian Embassy denied the allegation that Mr Hanna was a Syrian secret agent