Police in Ndola yesterday shot dead a suspected criminal who was on their wanted list, but the shootout left two innocent civilian nursing serious bullet wounds.

A combined team of Lusaka and Ndola crack squad pursued a wanted criminal who was reported to be at Ndola’s Mulungushi Bus Station.

Copperbelt police commissioner Charity Katanga said the suspected criminal was on the police’s wanted list for a spate of aggravated robberies and the murder of three police officers in Lusaka and Ndola.

Katanga named the gunned down suspected criminal as Alex Philip Banda aged between 40 and 45 years of Garden house and Kawama in Lusaka and Ndola respectively.

“He had been on the police wanted list for a long time for various offences which included aggravated robberies that took place at Petroda House involving K287, 000 where a police officer was shot dead,” Katanga said.

She said Banda who was Known as Mbesuma in Lusaka and Philimon in Ndola was involved in another robbery stealing K300, 000 from Super wholesale and another K240, 000 from Lake Petroleum in Lusaka.

Katanga said the criminal was involved in the aggravated robbery of more than K200,000 at Star Bakery in which two anti crack squad officers were shot dead in Ndola.

She explained that when police approached the suspect while trying to apprehend him, he bolted thereby forcing the officer to open fire in public, thereby shooting two civilians who were at the scene.

Katanga identified the civilians as Elisha Chola, 28 a bus conductor and Berrice Kafumbi who sustained gunshot wounds and were currently admitted to Ndola Teaching Hospital while the suspect’s body was laying in the mortuary.

“After he saw the police. He started to runaway, which promoted the police to shoot. In the process, stray bullets shot two people,” said Katanga.