Palestinian police officers (archives)
Photo: Reuters
Palestinians: Ramallah bank robbery planned in Israel
First armed robbery in history of Palestinian Authority planned by Israeli Jew, says spokesman of PA's security organization. According to official, some of people involved in incident arrested, part of stolen money returned
An armed bank robbery which took place in the West Bank city of Ramallah last week was planned by Israel and one of the bandits is an Israeli Jews, a spokesman for the Palestinian Authority's security organizations said Sunday.
According to the man, Adnan Dameiri, some of the people involved in the robbery have been arrested and part of the stolen money has been returned.
Dameiri said that three of the robbery schemers have Israeli identity cards and one of them is a Jew. He didn't elaborate on the suspects' identities.
According to the PA official, the bandits observed the robbed bank and additional bank branches for four months before choosing to rob the Arab Bank branch. Four veiled people entered the branch and stole some 27,000 Jordanian dinars (about $38,055) at gunpoint.
In the past two years, the Palestinian security organizations have been exerting great efforts in restoring the law and order in West Bank cities.
The armed robbery was perceived as one of the boldest acts of crime committed in the territories, in light of the fact that it took place near the most protected security headquarters area in Ramallah. This was also the first armed robbery in the PA's history.
This was the second time an official PA institution was broken into. In a separate incident, a safe was breached in the PA public prosecutor's offices in Jericho. The safe held drugs, stolen property, bags and documents collected by the prosecution in Bethlehem during the investigation of criminals affairs in the area.
