1.
LV Ambulances outside US Embassy (2 shots)
0.11

2.
SV & CU First hostage brought out of Embassy on stretcher and put into ambulance. (2 shots)
0.21

3.
SV PAN Second hostage brought out on stretcher and put in ambulance.
0.42

4.
SV Second ambulance drives off.
0.53

5.
SV PAN Relatives assisted towards cars.
1.00

6.
SV Police officer makes announcement in English.
1.15

7.
LV Men taking food in boxes to Embassy.
1.25


"They have been taken to a place by two ambulances and after a message we will get that their condition is well again the police will question these two girls about the situation in the Embassy."




Initials VS 20.44 VS 20.53



Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: The Japanese Red Army gunmen who stormed into the French Embassy in The Hague, the Netherlands, on Friday (13 September) released two of the eleven people they are holding as hostages just before down on Monday (16 September).

Two young women - both aged 22 - walked sobbing to freedom with rifle trained on them from the window of the room where they had been imprisoned for 60 hours.

Telephonist Bernadine Geerling and secretary Joyce Fleur ran the last few yards up the steps of the nearby United States' Embassy. They seemed to be in a weak condition and were later taken away on stretchers.

About an hour after the women were freed, police delivered food to the kidnappers and the remaining hostages, one of whom is the French Ambassador to Holland Jacques Senard.

A Dutch policeman said that the two women reported that the Japanese are not behaving aggressively and that there had been no ill-treatment of the hostages.

A Dutch government spokesman said the release of the two women could not be taken as a sign that more of the hostages would be freed soon.

Shortly after the women were released, a Dutch police officer made a statement in English. A transcript of this follows:-