Bank officer fatal shooting: Security company's licence revoked

The Home Ministry has revoked the licence of the security company whose guard shot dead the operations officer of the Ambank branch in Jalan USJ Central 2, Subang Jaya near here when robbing the bank Wednesday.

Ministry deputy secretary-general (Security) Datuk Alwi Ibrahim said, the company was found to have failed to meet conditions and regulations related to operations and management as required under the Private Agencies Act 1971, namely not doing proper vetting and allowing the guard concerned to be armed with a gun without a carry and use licence.

"The ministry found the company had a licence to hire armed guards but the suspect did not have this licence.

"Apart from this, it also made an application for the vetting process of the guard (suspect) only today. As such, the Home Ministry decided to cancel the licence of the company," he told a press conference here Thursday.

On Wednesday evening, the bank's operations officer Norazita Abu Talib, 37, was fatally shot in the face by the 37-year-old suspect after she had opened the bank's strong room to deposit money with a colleague at 6pm.

The suspect then ordered her colleague to load money from the strong room into a bag before escaping on a motorcycle.

Alwi said police were still investigating the background of the suspect who was a substitute guard at the bank.

"He (suspect) has yet to be arrested as of noon Thursday," he said.

Meanwhile, Alwi said based on records, the ministry had issued 751 licences to security companies and of the number, 125 were licensed to carry out security operations using firearms.

To ensure compliance to licensing conditions, he said the ministry conducted comprehensive audits on the companies concerned.

"The audits are ongoing and to date, 90 per cent of the companies have been audited and we are doing an analysis and compiling a report," he added.

He further warned security companies to comply to set regulations, including on sourcing guards from other contries to avoid their licenses from being revoked without notice.