BBC News. Wednesday,
2 January, 2002.
Mike Tyson has attacked journalists outside a hotel in Cuba, according to
witnesses.
The boxer, holidaying on the Caribbean island, was furious when he emerged
from a lift in one of Havana's premier sea-front hotels on Tuesday to see five
reporters waiting for him.
Tyson, 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.
The 35-year-old former undisputed heavyweight champion of the world
allegedly then picked up three crystal balls - each about the size of a
grapefruit - from a decoration in the hotel lobby and threw them.
Each of the balls smashed on the floor. Tyson then "lightly hit" a
Reuters cameraman twice on the back of the head with his fist, according to the
reports.
'Crazy'
The cameraman, Felipe Borrego, said: "He just went crazy. 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 on
Monday night.
It is the sort of controversy that Tyson hardly needs as he prepares for the
scheduled 6 April fight against Britain's Lennox Lewis.
Lewis' build-up could hardly have been more different so far.
The current heavyweight champion was awarded the CBE by the Queen in the New
Year Honours. That award followed Lewis' MBE in 1999. | 
