TWO GERMAN CUSTOMS MEN SHOT DEAD AT FRONTIER

DRESDEN, - A Kazakh man shot dead two German customs officers early Tuesday
during a routine inspection of a bus at the Polish-German border,
authorities said Tuesday.

Two passengers were also wounded in the incident at the Goerlitz frontier
crossing, about 60 miles east of Dresden. The suspected assailant was
captured shortly after jumping out of a window and fleeing, a police
spokesman said.

He added that he believed the passengers on the bus -- on its way to
Germany from Poland -- came mainly from Russia, Ukraine, Poland and Latvia.

Heinz Schulze, chairman of the German association of customs officials,
said that the shooting happened at 3:15 a.m. (9:15 p.m. Monday EST). The
assailant grabbed a pistol from the holster of one of the customs agents
and shot them both at close range.

Schulze said one of the agents was killed immediately while the second died
shortly afterward despite emergency medical treatment at the site of the
shooting. He identified the two victims as Ralf Schulze, no relation to the
chairman, and Thomas Haupt.

There were about 15 to 20 people in the bus, Schulze said. A group of
border guards had already made an inspection of the bus without incident,
he said. It was not known why the second inspection led to the shooting.

The border between Germany and Poland is considered to be one of the most
dangerous of Germany's nine frontiers because Eastern Europeans and
refugees from around the world often try to slip over it to enter the
prosperous European Union states.

There is also a considerable amount of smuggling, in particular of drugs
and untaxed cigarettes as well as of Third World refugees, across a border
that is about 220 miles long and is made up of the Oder and Neisse rivers.

"The dangers on the entire border are extremely high," Schulze said. "There
is drug crime and the readiness to resort to violence is high."

The border crossing was now closed for traffic, police said.