Samurai swordsmen attack diners
2005-01-25 13:11
Madrid - Assailants wielding Samurai swords attacked four Asians in a Barcelona restaurant, inflicting cuts on the head and hands in an apparent settling of scores between rival organised-crime gangs, officials and news reports said on Tuesday.
Two Chinese men and one each from Malaysia and East Timor were injured in the attack on Friday night in a Chinese restaurant in Spain's second-largest city, home to the country's largest Asian community, police spokesperson Jose Hernandez said from Barcelona.
He declined to discuss a motive and said witnesses inside the restaurant were refusing to talk to police investigators.
Another police official was quoted by the newspaper La Vanguardia as saying the attack appeared to stem from a dispute between crime gangs and that police will have trouble investigating.
One of the victims said several Chinese men had staged the attack, Hernandez said.
Hernandez said the victims had been hospitalised with numerous cuts but that their lives were not in danger. Police recovered a pistol and two katanas, or Samurai swords, near the restaurant, he said.
- AP