By Philip Buda Ladu
A police encounter with armed thugs outside the Central bank has left all the five dead after sometime of serious gunfire, said Police Spokesperson Major General Daniel Justin.
The incident happened at around 5 pm yesterday outside the Bank of South Sudan at the southern part of the Bank in Juba town.
According to the narrative from Police spokesperson Daniel Justin, the shooting followed a robbery case at the ministry of Petroleum in which the thugs were identified through CCTV cameras and then trucked down up to Juba town where they were intercepted and shot.
“Actually what happened there was a case of breaking into a car at the ministry of petroleum and then the owner of the car when he came back, he got his car broken and people entered and some money was looted from the car” he narrated to journalists in a press briefing last night.
The police spokesperson then said the robbery victim “reported to our police in the ministry”.
“They (police) started to cross-check with our cameras, through the cameras they managed to identify the car type, the plate number and then they shared the information with our field officers so immediately the car was located at Juba Commercial so people (security officers ) went and before reaching, the car started moving towards Juba town and then they were following it up until just around the southern part of the Central Bank then they tried to stop the car but those guys (thugs), when they show they knew that those were our CID officers then they started to open fire” Maj. Gen. Justin narrated.
“The opening of the fire took time and then one of them tried to open the door then he fell down, they were all injured because it was crossfire’ the police spokesperson continued.
Gen. Justin said they were informed of the incident and the police unit came in and they did their part.
“We came and made a statement that actually, what happened has nothing to do with what is going on in the social media that there was a robbery at the Central Bank and the staff were under detention” he clarified adding that, it was outside the Central Bank, “we went there and took photo and a case has been opened in the Juba Central Police Division”.
Justin said all the thugs met their fate in the shootout with the police as the four died while being rushed to hospital.
“What happened –after the shooting stopped from their side people rushed in, some of them were still alive, so our people (police) started trying to escort them to the hospital but; three were alive, other two seriously injured but one died on spot, and the other four were still alive and they died on their way to the hospital” Gen. Daniel Justin confirmed.
According to the police account, the robbery case has no connection with Central Bank. The deceased thugs’ identities were yet to be investigated, but initial finding pointed to possibility of getting details of the thieves as they have some identity documents in their tinted Premio car they used for robbing.