Island ferry trip ends in massacre

Press, 13 July 1988, Page 10

Island ferry trip ends in massacre

NZPA-Reuter Athens Three masked gunmen hurling grenades and firing sub-machine-guns killed nine people and wounded nearly 80 on a Greek ferry packed with tourists — then fled the blazing ship on a speedboat.

More than 200 panicstricken passengers on a day trip round the Aegean islands dived into the sea yesterday when the gunmen raked the 688-ton City of Poros with bullets. The police said some of the victims were dismembered by the vessel’s propellers. "One man took a machine-gun out of a bag and started shooting at the crowd. Another one hurled grenades and then it was absolute hysteria,” one passenger said. “People jumped in the sea and the ship’s deck was ablaze. I heard two explosions. There was blood everywhere.” The 417 passengers included American, French, British, German, Swedish, Yugoslav, Portuguese, Jordanian and Filipino holidaymakers. The ferry sailed on Monday morning from the port of Trokadero in the Athens suburb of Paleo Faliro for a one-day cruise to three nearby islands. A hire car exploded in Trokadero later in the day, killing two Arabs, a man and a woman. The

police said the car was packed with explosives and they believed the two incidents were linked. “The persons in the car were probably waiting for the boat to return to set the explosives off but something went wrong and they fell victims to their own weaponry,” a senior police officer who asked not to be identified told Reuters. “The gunmen on the ship probably heard the news of the blast from the radio and decided to take dynamic action on their own.” A sub-machine-gun, bullets, a grenade, a huge quantity of United States dollar bills, and an Iranian magazine were strewn round the wreckage of the car, rented by a Lebanese citizen who checked into an Athens hotel on Friday. The police identified him as Amout al-Hamit, aged 29. “What worries me is the Iranian magazine. Iran was in the news lately but I don’t want to say anything else,” the police officer said. Western diplomats in

Athens did not exclude the possibility that the ferry attack was linked to the shooting down of an Iranian Airbus by a United States warship in the Gulf on July 3. All 290 people on the plane were killed. “Iran has said it would avenge the deaths of its citizens. This attack could be just this,” one diplomat said. Unconfirmed reports said all United States bases in Greece had been put on alert. The Greek Navy, Air Force and coast guard launched a hunt for the attackers whose identity was not immediately known. People on ships near the ferry said they saw the gunmen set fire to the deck after the shooting and flee in a small boat. In hospitals passengers gave chilling accounts of what . happened on the ferry. “It was just like seeing death coming. People jumped in the sea for protection only to find a tragic end on the ship’s propellers,” one Greek passenger told Reuters.