TAWAU: A man who committed two robberies using a 68-centimetre-long machete on Friday was nabbed when he rode a hijacked motorcycle into the grounds of the Tawau police station here to escape from a crowd in hot pursuit.
Tawau district police chief Assistant Commissioner Peter Umbuas said the suspect, aged 27, was detained by police at 8.10am, 20 minutes after he robbed a man of his Modenas GT motorcycle in Jalan Tawau Lama, here.
"The victim asked for help from passersby to chase the suspect, but the suspect, who had hijacked his motorcycle, managed to evade them until he entered the grounds of the Tawau police station and was detained," he said in a statement here, on Friday.
He said the suspect had also robbed a man driving a Nissan Frontier on Jalan Tanjung Batu Darat here, at 7am.
"The suspect then escaped with the victim's vehicle towards Jalan Tawau Lama, but the vehicle ran out of fuel at the Jalan Tawau Lama roundabout, forcing the suspect to abandon the vehicle at the side of the road," he said.
Peter said a remand order would be made against the suspect under Section 117 of the Criminal Procedure Code at the Tawau Magistrate's Court.
An initial investigation revealed that the suspect used the same modus operandi for both robberies, by brandishing the parang to force the victims to stop and hijacking their vehicles to make his escape," he said.
Peter added that the suspect had been detained four times since 2014 for drug abuse. - Bernama
