Source: Reuter Pubdate: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 Copyright: © 1998 Reuters Limited. 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.