September 25, 2007	Tuesday	Ramazan 12, 1428

WASHINGTON, Sept 24: More than 1.4 million murders, rapes, robberies and assaults were committed around the United States last year, marking a rise in violent crime for the second year in a row, the FBI said on Monday.

“Nationwide, there were an estimated 1,417,745 violent crimes reported in 2006,” the Federal Bureau of Investigation said in its “Crime in the United States” report, which updated preliminary data released in June.

The rate of violent crime was up by 1.9 per cent compared with 2005, with murders and non-negligent homicides climbing by 1.8 per cent to nearly 15,000 cases last year.

Robberies rose by 7.2 per cent, while incidences of rape fell two per cent. Less than half of violent crime cases, 44.3 per cent, were cleared, the data showed.—AFP