Video: Money changer's killer caught on camera

A 22-year-old Syrian thief went into a money change shop in Lebanon and pretended he would come back and transfer money.

Just after the changer handed him his business card, the burglar stealthily pulled out a knife and stabbed him in the chest.

The shocked Mohammed Al Natut, a well-known money changer in the southern port of Sidon, rushed to his drawer to get his gun but the thief gave him no chance. He ran past the counter and went after the man, in his 40s, just before he reached his drawer.

“He stabbed him many times until Natut died…he then robbed the shop and fled…what surprises me is that the thief carried out this operation in the evening in a very busy street,” said a police official in the city.

“He then went straight to the nearby taxi stand and told the driver to take him to Beirut…he was apparently unaware that he murdered the man and robbed his shop under the eyes of the camera.”

The official said a photograph of the killer was printed out of the security camera and shown to taxi drivers at the station. One of them identified the killer and told police he took a taxi driven by Nayef Kawash.

“We contacted Nayef and asked him about the man who he took to Beirut…he said he has just dropped him at a restaurant,” the official said.

“We told him that the man is a killer and a thief who has just murdered a man in Sidon…we asked him to try and keep him while a police force is sent to him…Nayef emerged as a very courageous man as he went back into that restaurant, dragged the Syrian out, overpowered him and locked him inside his car boot…a police force reached him and picked the killer….Nayef is a big man and this helped him overpower that murderer…without him, the killer could have got away with it.”

A private website for Sidon ran the following 140-second film on the murder that shocked the ancient city of more than 200,000 people.