ATHENS, Greece (AP) — A man arrested in the killings of two people and the hijacking of a busload of Japanese tourists died Sunday after hurling himself from a seventh-story window at police headquarters.
Police said Christos Kendiras, 48, broke away from four officers and threw himself through a window at police headquarters in Athens after his handcuffs were removed for his fingerprints to be taken.
The death embarrassed Greek police a day after they successfully persuaded him to peacefully end a 10-hour hostage crisis by turning himself in to a popular television talk show host.
It was the second time a hostage-taker died in police custody in the last two years. In 1998, a Romanian man who had held a family hostage with a hand grenade in an Athens apartment died in custody after choking while heavily sedated.
The government ordered an immediate investigation into the death, which occurred less than an hour before the suspect was to appear before a public prosecutor. A separate judicial inquiry was also launched.
Kendiras on Saturday shot and killed his mother-in-law and a friend after accusing his wife of being unfaithful. He then commandeered a bus with 33 mainly elderly Japanese vacationers, threatening them with a shotgun and container filled with gasoline.
The bus zigzagged across parts of southern Greece and hostages said Kendiras had repeatedly threatened to take his own life.
"This was an unlucky moment for the Greek police, especially after the successful operation to safeguard the lives of the hostages," said Dimitris Efstathiadis, general secretary of Greece's public order ministry.
But critics demanded further clarification.
Makis Triantafilopoulos, the TV host who negotiated Kendiras' surrender, faulted police for his death.
"This is unbelievable, but it happened," he said. "What happened this morning, that a man committed suicide and left right out of their hands, shows the real situation."
The Japanese tourists had arrived in Greece on Thursday and were heading to a 4th century B.C. theater in Epidauros, about 110 miles southwest of the capital, when Kendiras hijacked their bus. None were injured.
Japan's ambassador, Motoi Ohkubo, said the tourists were in a "shocked state" but that most would continue their tour.
Ohkubo thanked the Greek police and said he did not think the incident would stop nearly 100,000 Japanese from visiting Greece each year.
"We will not advise them to stop coming," he said. "But at the same time, we will have to tell them what happened, and they should take precautions not to have the same experience."