Attica security police senior officials believe the gunmen who opened fire on Dias motorbike squad police on Tuesday evening, killing two officers and seriously injuring two others, are part of an organised car theft gang and perhaps involved in other armed robberies or even more serious crimes.
Police said on Tuesday that they have found 23 shells from Kalashnikov rifles and 17 9mm shells at the scene of the shooting in the district of Renti, near Piraeus, as well as nine bullets while, at a short distance, they also found a pistol clip with five bullets.
A police announcement said the Volvo jeep used by the gunmen had been stolen on January 17 from a used car dealership in Nea Erythrea, on the 18th kilometre of the Athens-Lamia national highway, while its license plates had also been stolen the same day at the same dealership from another vehicle.
A total of eight Volvo vehicles had been stolen that day from the dealership, one of which was used in a recent armed robbery of a National Bank branch in the Aspra Spitia town in Viotia prefecture and later abandoned, while three others had been used to transport illegal migrants and were seized by police in Kavala and Larissa, the announcement said.
Police are also investigating the prospect that the perpetrators of Tuesday's robbery of a kiosk in the Menidi district of Athens, who later riddled the Dias policemen with bullets, are involved in the Aspra Spitia robbery or acquired the vehicle from another vehicle theft gang.
The Volvo involved in Tuesday's shooting and a kalashnikov and pistol used against the police officers, which were found in the vehicle the gunmen abandoned in Moschato after the shooting, are still being investigated by the police crime lab, and a ballistics test will turn up whether the weapons have been used in other criminal actions.
The Menidi kiosk robbery is similar to another armed robbery of a kiosk in Ano Liossia a few days earlier, in which the kiosk owner was killed, police are examining the prospect that the perpetrators were the same in both instances.
Police are continuing a manhunt for the gunmen.
The Gada announcement further said that the Dias squad chasing the Volvo they spotted near Renti after the robbery of the kiosk in Menidi had called headquarters seeking back-up, and within four minutes 14 Dias teams, in other words 28 policemen, were dispatched, as well as seven patrol cars, bringing the number to 56 police officers, with orders for all vehicles to head towards Piraeus and close off all the escape routes.
Meanwhile, several other patrol cars had reached the scene of the shooting, as indicated by the bullets from the perpetrators' weapons found in the helmets and bullet-proof vests of four more officers apart from the initial four, but without causing injury.
source: ANA
