By Moutaz Ali.
Tripoli, 28 March 2017:
A policeman was killed and three of his colleagues injured, one of them seriously, during a Tripoli bank robbery early this morning. The police were were gunned down outside the Suq Al-Thalatha branch of the National Commercial Bank in Tripoli’s Fallah district. It is reported that the attackers also kidnapped a bank manager and three of the bank guards.
The National Commercial Bank has not said how much money was stolen in the heist and has not commented on the kidnappings.
The same gang is later believed to have shot up a police vehicle outside the police station on the Airport Road.
The Tripoli Security Directorate has given no indication of the fate of the seized manager and guards but named the murdered policeman as Nasruddin Khalifa. Social media pictures have been posted of him lying in a pool of blood as his colleagues tried in vain to save him.
The identity of the gunmen remains unclear. The Security Directorate put out a statement declaring: “All the security services inside Tripoli will continue to protect citizens and public and private institutions.”