Amen,........More Grace and Mercy,..........In Jesus' Precious Name, Amen!!!
Here is the original Guardian account before the three-day beat:
Monte Carlo banker killed by intruders on eve of $10bn deal
Jon Henley in Paris
Saturday December 4, 1999
The Guardian
An investigation has been launched into the death of a leading international banker who was killed yesterday just weeks after agreeing a multibillion dollar deal to sell his empire.
Edmond Safra, 68, one of the world's wealthiest men, died in a fire apparently lit by two knife-wielding, masked men who broke into his Monte Carlo penthouse before dawn yesterday. He was the founder and a major shareholder of Republic New York Corporation, the third largest bank in the New York area. He was in the final stages of selling his stake in the bank and the Luxembourg-based Safra Republic bank to the London-based financial services group HSBC, in a deal worth nearly $10bn (£6.26bn).
Police in the Mediterranean principality said he died from suffocation after barricading himself into his bathroom to escape the attackers.
Monaco's government-run press service said the two masked intruders broke into the six-storey belle epoque building near the town's casino, shortly after 5.30 a.m.
They made their way unchallenged to Lebanese-born Safra's apartment on the fifth and sixth floors and forced the main door. This set off alarms in the building, which also houses the Monaco branch of Republic New York Corporation, the French bank Paribas and other international financial institutions, giving Safra time to hide.
"It seems the killers were unable, or didn't have time, to reach their victims," a police spokesman said. "It's possible, though we don't yet know for sure, that they started the fire just outside the apartment door on the sixth floor. It spread to the roof very quickly. I don't think the occupants had much of a chance to escape."
It took firefighters three hours to extinguish the blaze, which gutted the top two floors of the building.
Safra, who suffered from Parkinson's disease, died in the bathroom with his stepdaughter's nanny, who was not identified. His Brazilian wife, Lily Monteverdi, and her granddaughter barricaded themselves in another room and survived unscathed.
The family bodyguard suffered a minor knife wound to the stomach during a struggle.
The attack rocked the small principality, whose 30,000 inhabitants are rarely troubled by crime. Monaco, which has a 450-strong police force and where some 70 video surveillance cameras are installed around the town, averages one murder a decade.
HSBC said it was "appalled" at Safra's death, but that it would not halt the deal. Rumours swept financial markets yesterday suggesting Arab or Jewish extremists were behind the attack or even the Russian mafia.
Police are now investigating whether the attack was linked with Mr Safra's business activities. He incurred heavy losses in Russia last year, and had also received death threats in recent years, according to some banking sources. The simplest theory was that it was a bungled burglary attempt.
Safra, the son of a wealthy Jewish family from Beirut, was a noted philanthropist who helped build synagogues and schools across the world.