Kalamata robbery leads to shootout

Two police officers and a suspected bank robber were injured late on Monday in the southern Peloponnese town of Kalamata in an exchange of fire during a police investigation into a bank robbery earlier in the day.

Police were looking into an armed heist that had occurred at 3 p.m. on Monday of a branch of Emporiki Bank, in which three men wearing helmets smashed their way into the bank with a sledgehammer and, threatening employees with Kalashnikov assault rifles, made off with 90,000 euros.

Police questioned and searched a young man they believed to have been involved in the smash-and-grab, finding a set of house keys. They were opening the door to the apartment with the keys found on the suspect when two men — believed to be the bank robbers — opened fire from inside the apartment.

In the shootout, two policemen and one of the suspected bank robbers were injured.