13 February 2008
Maputo — The Mozambican police on Wednesday morning announced that police officers killed three armed men who were supposedly preparing to rob a bank and a shop in downtown Maputo.
Two other members of the gang are in police custody, including one who was seriously injured. The police unit that opened fire may have had the advantage of surprise because they were in plain clothes.
Two of the men shot died instantly on a street corner near the Ginwala vegetable oil factory. A third managed to run a short distance, but collapsed and died in front of one of the area's hotels.
The police say they seized from the gang an AK-47 assault rifle, a pistol, and the car they were using, a Toyota Cressida.
The Maputo City police spokesman, Abilio Quive, told reporters police are convinced that the gang had intended to rob one of the many banks in downtown Maputo, as well as a local shop.
Other police officers told AIM that the gang had intended to take advantage of the fact that many Maputo policemen were not on the streets at that time, but were attending the launch, by Deputy Interior Minister Jose Mandra, of a civic education campaign aimed at the ranks of the police force.
They may thus have believed, fatally, that the commercial heart of Maputo was denuded of police protection.
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