Munich police 'shot dead eight Israeli athletes'

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Families of the 11 Israeli athletes who died at the Munich Olympics in 1972 have obtained German documents showing that police and not Palestinian gunmen killed eight of them, the Yediot Aharanot newspaper reported yesterday. It said the new evidence included pathologists' and ballistics reports. Helicopter-borne German police stormed the building where the athletes were being held by Palestinians of the PLO Black September group.

The families' lawyer, Pinhas Zletzer, who has asked to see the German Foreign Minister, Klaus Kinkel, said that police and ballistics reports had been 'in the hands of the Bavarian state prosecutor, and it seems the German authorities had something to hide from us all these years'.

The families have regularly protested about the German government's failure to release reports on the deaths and to pay any compensation. The German Red Cross paid relatives dollars 1m ( pounds 526,000) and the West German Olympic Committee 10,000 marks per family.