Bus hijacked in northern Italy but passengers freed

TURIN, May 15 (Reuters) Three men armed with guns and knives hijacked a bus in northern Italy today, wounding a policeman before freeing all the passengers, police sources said.

One source said the three, believed to be North Africans, had stopped the bus on a street between the Piedmont cities of Novara and Alessandria, and had set it on fire after allowing all passengers to get off.

Police captured one of the hijackers. Another was barricaded into a nearby farmhouse and the third one was on the run.

''A policeman who was not on duty but interevened has been stabbed, but he is not in serious condition,'' said an Interior Ministry official.

Reuters TB VV2117