Slovak Police Planted Explosives On Air Travelers 926
Entropy98 writes "Slovakian Police have planted explosives on 8 unsuspecting air travelers. Seven were stopped by airport security, including one man arrested and held upon arriving at a Dublin airport. Unbelievably, one innocent traveler made it home with 90 grams of explosives, and had his flat surrounded by the police and bomb squad."
Re:WHY does this NEVER hapen to me? (Score:5, Informative)
I don't like your chances of suing the Slovak police in Slovakia.
Re:Why? (Score:2, Informative)
Doesn't that ruin most drugs?
Link to The Irish Times newspaper (Score:1, Informative)
Explosives found in Dublin flat
CONOR LALLY, Crime Correspondent
A Garda investigation is under way after a Slovakian man unwittingly carried explosives on a commercial flight to Ireland as part of an airport security check that went wrong.
The 49-year-old was one of eight people who had plastic explosives planted in their luggage last Saturday morning at Bratislava airport by the Slovakian security services.
The covert planting of the material in the passengers' bags was done to test the airport's security screening.
Security checks at the airport uncovered seven of the concealments. However, the man flying to Dublin was not detected.
Read the rest here [irishtimes.com].
Re:Why? (Score:3, Informative)
Bad English indeed, to flip around the words in the idiomatic English phrase "set up us the bomb".
Re:Seriously? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Multilayer WTF? (Score:5, Informative)
But I'm sure we'll soon get info how the whole thing works like a charm, after all 7 out of 8 bombs would have been detected...
I don't even think that's the case.
FTFA:
The explosive was one of eight pieces of contraband placed with unsuspecting passengers at Bratislava Airport last weekend, broadcaster RTE reported.
and
Airport security detected seven of the illicit items, but the eighth - 90g of research development explosive - managed to escape detection.
They planted eight pieces of contraband, one of which (the one that got through) was a high-grade explosive. They don't mention what the other seven pieces were, but they could have been steak knives, scissors, nail clippers, forks or drugs. All of which are easily detected with things that don't detect bombs.
Re:Send the police to jail (Score:5, Informative)
Hey, if the TSA guys tell him to get in the floor (and don't shoot it while in the floor) then they are not too bad... in the UK it could have been way worse. Just out of my memory:
No punishment for anyone, all of the people responsible for these killings (and intents of cover-ups) still work for the Government.
Nothing like a little perspective, don't you think?
I'm Slovak and the summary is wrong. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Multilayer WTF? (Score:1, Informative)
As someone who flies every week for work and has a great deal of experience with the TSA I can tell you that the fact that 7 of 8 of these explosive compounds were detected is miraculous. That being said I have no doubt of my ability to get practically anything through security on my first attempt. If you travel a lot you learn where you can go in the big airports for more privacy, where things can be hidden in case it takes multiple trips through security to assemble whatever it is your trying to get through. I'm quite certain I could disassemble a AK47 and get it through. Anyway enough rambling; TSA is worthless, give me my tax dollars back!
Re:Send the police to jail (Score:5, Informative)
And yet the reports into the shooting of an innocent men found no members of the police guilty and security measures in the UK have continued to become more invasive.
Be careful what you wish for.
Re:Lucky they landed in Ireland and not the US. (Score:1, Informative)
For those who don't get the reference, look up the IRA [wikipedia.org]. A terrorist group, ironically enough, not directly assisted by the USA's different governments throughout the years.
the Irish Times has some additional details (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Send the police to jail (Score:4, Informative)
The police certainly weren't banned from BART for shooting Oscar Grant [wikipedia.org], even though bystanders caught the whole thing on video and the victim did not have any contraband, planted or otherwise.
The summary is wrong. (Score:5, Informative)
including one man arrested and held upon arriving at a Dublin airport
He was arrested in his flat, not in the airport. From TFA:
From this article [irishtimes.com]:
Re:Multilayer WTF? (Score:3, Informative)
Slovak authorities apologise as hidden explosives enter Dublin [irishtimes.com]
Re:Multilayer WTF? (Score:3, Informative)
They planted eight pieces of contraband, one of which (the one that got through) was a high-grade explosive. They don't mention what the other seven pieces were
According to this [irishtimes.com], they were all high-grade plastic explosives.
Re:Seriously? (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year [wikipedia.org]
If the fictional nuke wielding terrorists managed to set one off every four years and kill as many people as died at Hiroshima, they'd kill about as many people as die from motor vehicle accidents in the US in the same time period.
Re:I'm Slovak and the summary is wrong. (Score:3, Informative)
Not only did the Slovak security not stop the guy, but the Dublin security didn’t stop him either. He took his luggage home with the explosives still inside, unpacked and still didn’t find them, and 3 days later Slovak police called him and told him there were explosives in his luggage, right before the Irish police raided his apartm– um, his flat.
Good thing it wasn't the UK (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Seriously? (Score:5, Informative)
In the US less then 3000 people have been killed by terrorism in the last 10 years. More then 40,000 people are killed each year in motor vehicle accidents.
Re:Seriously? (Score:5, Informative)
April 17, 1986: A pregnant Irishwoman was duped by her Muslim boyfriend, Nezar Hindawi [wikipedia.org], into carrying a bomb onto an aircraft at Heathrow.
Fortunately it was an El Al flight, so they had actual security instead of the pretend type they have for US/European airlines and she was stopped before boarding.
Yes its true story, more info here (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Yes its true story, more info here (Score:2, Informative)
Re:You mean the illegal immigrant? (Score:5, Informative)
Ran? I don't see mention of the specifics on the UK news site in the GP, but the last time I read about the case at the time it happened, the eyewitnesses were making statements that indicated he had not been running, and was shot twice in the back of the head by men by men who did not announce themselves, before falling to the ground and being shot in the head again repeatedly - contrary to what the police claimed at the time.
Re:You mean the illegal immigrant? (Score:5, Informative)
He was in the country lawfully. [bbc.co.uk] He did not run, he stood from his seat when a plain clothes cop yelled 'He's here!' [bbc.co.uk] to 2 of his colleagues. The police did not identify themselves before shooting. [telegraph.co.uk]. Oh, and the police lied about it aftewards [guardian.co.uk].
Re:Seriously? (Score:1, Informative)
Yeah, everyone is scared a terrorist group may have a nuke.
No, not really.
Oh wait... when we invaded Iraq... they had no WMDs
Yes they did. They didn't have any nukes (unless you count a few hundred tons of half-refined yellowcake), but there were a few things found (500 or so items, mostly chemical weapons, including sarin and mustard-filled projectiles) as documented by the June 21, 1996 reply of John D. Negroponte (Director of National Intelligence) to Peter Hoekstra's (former chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence) request of June 19, 2006.
Just because the media keeps repeating the same false statement (that there were no WMDs) doesn't make it true. Just because "everybody knows" nothing was found doesn't make it true. Even if nothing had been found (ignoring the fact that over 500 items WERE found), that wouldn't have been evidence that "they had no WMDs", it would only be evidence that we didn't find anything. Iraq is a reasonably large country, and failure to find anything (ignoring, once again, that we did find over 500 munitions that are technically classified as WMDs) could be explained by any number of possibilities (such as having them well hidden, having them exported to another country like Syria, having them destroyed pre-invasion, etc.).
Re:You mean the illegal immigrant? (Score:5, Informative)
Get this and get this straight, he was shot because he ran and he ran because he was a criminal.
First, the police had no evidence suggesting he was a criminal, and in fact he was not a criminal. He was never tried and convicted of anything, he was not under surveilance for any reason (until that day), nothing. While there were some inconsistancies regarding his Visa, records show that he had entered the UK via Ireland and was well within the automatic 3 month limit granted to people entering the UK via Ireland. The inquest determined he was in the country legally at the time he was shot.
The inquest also determined that Menezes was never running, he had been under surveilance because he lived in the same building as the suspected bombers, but all the suspecions the plainclothes officers had on him were based on that fact and the fact that he had brown skin and "mongolian eyes" as one officer put it. While sitting on the train, newspaper in hand, he was grabbed and shot 7 times in the head. He was not doing anything a normal person wouldn't, his only crimes were living in a building where four suspected bombers lived, and having brown skin.
The inquest determined that the police did not identify themselves before shooting, essentially he stood up, was tackled, and shot before he knew anything was going on. They did this at point blank range, according to eyewitness reports, after having subdued him.
This was an example of where the Police got it very, very wrong, and killed an innocent man for no reason other than they were scared. They did not even give him fair warning, they simply killed him almost execution style. Way to keep us safe, eh?
Re:Seriously? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Seriously? (Score:3, Informative)
They lacked one of the 5, safety. They pretty universally came from very violent countries where the religious caste can do whatever they want to you if you don't obey their rules, or even if you do and they don't like you.