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By Naeema Misrati.
Tripoli, 15 December:
A large number of men armed with pistols stormed the Commercial Bank in the Dahra area of . . .[restrict]the capital yesterday after it refused to exchange foreign currency for them.
The group, which has yet to be identified, gathered outside the bank to exchange Libyan Dinar for US Dollars.
Ali Bin Hassan, who was working at the bank at the time, said: “We had kept the exchange open until the end of working hours, and we told them that we would open the next day.”
Hassan said that the armed men then threatened to kill bank employees and security guards unless they were given currency that day, and cut off electricity to the building, which shut down the bank’s operating system.
The attackers then detained the cashier and his assistant, and no attempt was made to stop them.
An unnamed official in the bank confirmed that there were only two security guards present at the time of the incident, who were unable to stop the group from storming into the building, where they smashed equipment and stole stamps and cheques.
Staff at the bank were left totally demoralised by the attack, he said.
The official went on to say that he had tried to contact all relevant security bodies, but nobody had come to assist him, placing the blame for the incident firmly at the feet of the government departments charged with protecting public institutions.
He added: “Do they even think about the ordinary citizen who has to face these daily attacks and the state of chaos and the loss of the state’s prestige?”
One of the security guards present at the time of the attack, Abdul Hamid Harith, said that he had called six separate security organisations during the raid without any response.
He said that he had recorded the incident as it took place, and that he would hand over a list of names of some of those involved in the incident to the relevant authorities. [/restrict]
