Greece bus hijackers demand ransom

The bus, with 25 people on board, was hijacked early Wednesday in an Athens suburb by two armed men demanding to be flown back to Russia, police and government officials said.

The two men, armed with rifles, boarded the bus in the early hours, firing shots into its roof and halting the vehicle on a thoroughfare in the suburb of Gerakas, where police surrounded it, a government spokesman said.

About six hours after the drama unfolded, the hijackers released two men and three women who were seen leaving the bus from the driver's side. One of the freed hostages, identified as Yannis Bratsiakos, 55, was said to suffer from heart problems and the second man could be seen limping. Later the hijackers freed one more man and a woman.

Police said 20 hostages remained on the bus. The private radio station Alpha said someone claiming to be one of the hostage-takers had called it via a mobile phone taken from a woman passenger on the bus.