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Terrorism at Euro 2000 |
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News |
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June 25, 2000
EDEGEM, Netherlands (AP) - Antiterrorist police arrested a group of five armed, masked men close to the hotel housing the Yugoslav Euro 2000 players, team officials said on Saturday.
No shots were fired and the players, who are due to face the Netherlands in the quarterfinal at Rotterdam on Sunday, didn't know anything about the incident, which happened late on Friday evening.
According to Yugoslav team security official Costa Vukovic there was security alert at about 10 pm. Five men armed with guns wearing masks were spotted on the edge of the forest near the hotel by a woman who was walking her dog.
Vukovic said that anti terrorist police came into the hotel to protect the players and five men were arrested in the forest. They had rubber bullets in their possesion. They had stepped out of a German registered car and never got closer than some 200 meters (yards) from the hotel.
According to Vukovic, the five men claim they were playing war games. The players were told to go to their rooms on the first floor and turn their lights off. The whole incident took one hour and 15 minutes.
"It's a small incident because it ended this way," Vukovic said. "Five people came out of a German-registered car. A woman walking her dog saw them and phoned the police. Police were very quick to react. We didn't want to panic the players and told them to go to their room."
Dutch police were initially unable to comment on the incident.
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