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| January 3, 2002 | Thursday | Shawwal 18, 1422 |
Tyson threatens journalists in fracas
HAVANA, Jan 2: Boxer Mike Tyson was involved in a heated confrontation with journalists in his Cuban hotel lobby Tuesday, shouting and tossing crystal balls at them and lightly punching one cameraman on the head, witnesses said.
Tyson, on a tourism trip to the Caribbean island, looked furious to see five journalists waiting for him when he emerged from a lift in one of Havana’s premier sea-front hotels.
The American heavyweight fighter, wearing jeans but no top and sporting a tattoo of Latin American guerrilla hero Ernesto “Che” Guevara on his stomach, raised his fists in a threatening gesture and yelled insults in English and Spanish, according to witnesses and Reuters journalists at the scene.
Tyson, 35, picked up three crystal balls — each about the size of a grapefruit — from a decoration in the hotel lobby, which smashed on the floor after he threw them at the journalists. He also lightly hit a Reuters cameraman twice on the back of the head with his fist.
“He just went crazy,” said the cameraman, Felipe Borrego. “I was planning to ask him for an interview, but he never let me speak, he just turned on us.”
Cuban staff at the hotel said Tyson had appeared to become steadily more irritated at unwelcome attention from tourists and others since his arrival Monday night.—Reuters
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