‘You won’t kill me, God is on my side’
Believed to be a preacher, the man had his head cut when he and the robber smashed through the front window of the post office during the struggle.
The man, thought to be from the Congo, wrestled the raider to the ground and sat on top of him.
Gardaí yesterday praised him: “He is a very brave man. He suffered bad head injuries, but luckily they are not life-threatening,” said a garda spokesman.
The Congolese man was queuing in the post office on Botanic Road in Dublin at around 10.30am when the masked raider walked in.
A Nigerian man, who was in the post office, said the raider was carrying a knife and a gun.
“They passed through the window outside and they were rolling on the ground,” he said.
Another witness, Gordon Johnston, said he had just come from the butcher’s shop next door to the post office when he saw the two men smashing through the window.
“The two guys were grappling on the ground. There was a gun on the ground. It was kicked away in the melee.”
He said he wasn’t sure initially which of the two was the raider.
“I wasn’t sure who was who, but it became pretty obvious that the guy on the bottom was the robber.
“There was a Nigerian guy there, he had a bible in his hand. One of the people said he was a preacher. Yer man said ‘get off or I’ll kill you’, he said ‘you won’t kill me, God is on my side’.”
Mr Johnston said the African man’s head was “split wide open” from the glass and that the amount of blood was like “something from a slaughterhouse”.
“He was obviously in a lot of pain, but he wouldn’t get off him.”
He said he rang 999 and that gardaí were there within a minute. An imitation firearm was recovered. The raider was arrested and was due to be charged yesterday.
The African man was taken to the Mater Hospital. A hospital spokesman said his injuries were not serious.
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