By Adrian Frater, Staff ReporterWESTERN BUREAU:
THE BADLY decomposed body of a man who is believed to have been one of the robbers who figured in Monday's $700,000 robbery in Montego Bay, St. James, was found in bushes in the West Green area of the city yesterday morning with multiple gunshot wounds.
According to Newton Amos, the commanding officer for the St.James police, and who was among the police personnel who converged on the death scene shortly after 8:00 a.m. yesterday, the drama had started much earlier in the morning.
He told The Gleaner that during a pre-dawn raid, another suspect in the robbery was held in the Roehampton area of the parish and a .357 Magnum revolver, with blood stains on the barrel, recovered.
"Acting on intelligence, we staged a pre-dawn raid in Roehampton and held a suspect with a firearm, which we believed was one of the weapons that figured in the robbery," Superintendent Amos said.
"It was the information that we got from this man that led us to the body we found this morning," he explained.
The discovery of the body, which brings to three the number of suspected robbers killed in the aftermath of the robbery and the subsequent running gun-battle with the police, came as no surprise to Superintendent Amos. According to him, the police had always suspected that, in addition to the two men killed on Monday and the one who was shot and injured, other members of the gang were hit.
SEARCHED
"We suspected that others were hit and we actually searched the bushes but did not find anyone," said the Superintendent.
The robbery, which unfolded shortly after 10:00 a.m. on Monday, at the Supreme Ventures Outlet, located at Artwell's Easy Access Plaza, in the city, saw the robbers entering the building and relieving employees of over $700,000 in cash and a number of cellular phones.
While leaving the building they reportedly encountered an armoured truck with security guards and a gun-battle started. A passing police patrol joined the action and the shootout intensified as the robbers tried to escape. When the shooting ended, two of the suspected robbers were declared dead and another was found nursing gun shot wounds.
The stolen loot was not recovered.
