Tripoli, 9 May:
Further details are emerging on the three-man gang arrested on suspicion of carrying out Sunday’s LD2 million armed robbery, . . .[restrict]in which three guards were murdered and a fourth left for dead.
A source close to the investigation said today that the three suspects were from the brigade hired to protect the Benghazi premises of the Libyan Central Bank. They were arrested yesterday by brigadesmen from Tobruk, who also recovered a quantity of cash.
The vehicle carrying the money from the Central Bank to the Bank of North Africa in Tobruk had been ambushed on the road between the two cities. Three guards were shot, two of them fatally. The fourth had his throat cut, investigators allege, because the gang wished to make it look as if the crime had been carried out by Islamist extremists. It is also reported that investigators no longer believe that the men were from Derna.
It is thought that the gang set out to murder all the guards because they feared that they might be recognised from their regular guard duties at the Central Bank building. The surviving guard is thought to have been able to identify the attackers to investigators. [/restrict]
