Durban - Tho men, including one of Durban’s most wanted suspects, have been arrested near Ntuzuma after a shoot-out with police that left a policewoman and a bystander wounded.
One of the men was armed with an AK-47 automatic rifle and shot at police, who had been tipped off about his whereabouts in the north Durban township of Bester.
The two were to appear in the Ntuzuma Magistrate’s Court today to face charges of attempted murder and unlawful possession of a firearm.
Police spokesman, Colonel Jay Naicker, said police had responded to a tip-off that the suspects were travelling in a black VW Golf.
Occupants
When the suspects saw the Inanda Tactical Reaction Team (TRT) officers, they opened fire on them. A policewoman was shot in the thigh and a bystander in her back, he said.
“One of the occupants surrendered to the police and was arrested. The second suspect fled and disappeared in the nearby informal dwellings,” Naicker said.
The suspect left the rifle in the car and fled on foot, and police believe the weapon had been used in a series of robberies in the Durban area.
Police said the suspect was also linked to cash-in-transit heists and armed robberies at Spar supermarkets in the province.
Naicker said police later arrested the second suspect in the informal settlement.
Provincial police commissioner, Lieutenant-General Mmamonnye Ngobeni, commended the officers for the arrests and said the community would be safer with the suspects behind bars.
“We hope that the courts will mete out a fitting sentence for the crimes…,” Ngobeni said.
Daily News