Police foil home robbery

Two young men who attempted to burgle the home of an elderly woman in Triq l-Assunta, Marsa, were arrested by the police yesterday after a frantic chase.

The attempted robbery took place at around 7.30 a.m. when the woman inside the house was hearing Mass on the radio. A neighbour said that she often left her home without locking the front door.

Sensing a commotion by the front door of the house they had entered, the robbers rushed up to the roof of the house to try to get away by jumping from one roof to the other.

The police who were soon on site circled the block, practically blocking all access to San Mikiel, l-Assunta, Zerafa and Azzopardi streets.

One of the would-be robbers had the audacity to enter the house next door, make his way down from the roof to the ground floor and asking the woman living there, who was talking to a neighbour by the front door, to move aside because he wanted to go out.

The other man thought of another escape route, by jumping onto a wooden platform at the back yard of a carpenter's workshop in Triq San Mikiel but the workshop at that time was closed.

In fact the police had to phone up the owner of the workshop to open up his business so that they could apprehend the man who was trapped inside.

However the police believe that more than two people were involved in the crime and the scene of the crime officers made a photographic record of the place and looked for fingerprints.

The district police are investigating.