Luxembourg

New York, June 12, 2000 --- The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned that the tactics Luxembourg police used last week to shoot an armed man who was holding 25 children hostage in a daycare center could increase the risks journalists face in dangerous situations.

On Thursday, June 1, Luxembourg police officers led the gunman to believe that he would be allowed to give an interview to a television crew. Police then commandeered a camera from a local TV station, hid a gun inside it, and dispatched the camera with a police marksman, who posed as a cameraman. When the hostage-taker emerged from the daycare center with a child in one arm and a grenade in the other, the marksman shot him using the hidden gun.