A number of bomb threats in recent weeks have police and bomb squads busy, and inconveniencing commuters, shoppers and students.
In the most recent incident, two girls, ages 14 and 16, were arrested for a bomb threat dialled into 112 at 1:21 in the afternoon yesterday. The caller said that a bomb would go off at the Brønderslev train station in northern Jutland ten minutes after the call.
Trains were cancelled and the station evacuated while police investigated the threat. The alert was called off 30 minutes later after nothing suspicious was found in or around the station.
It was discovered that the call originated from a pay phone located inside the train station. The two girls, who are from the Brønderslev area, were arrested around 4pm after police identified them using pictures taken from the station’s CCTV system.
According to police, the 14-year-old was “too young to be punished” and it was uncertain whether the 16-year-old would be forced to appear at a preliminary hearing.
Police have also arrested a 22-year-old man suspected of calling in a bomb threat to an Aarhus business school on Monday. The suspect denies the charges, but police say that they have evidence linking him and a possible accomplice, who remains at large, to not only the most recent threat, but to a threat against the school in October.
“We have clues that indicate that we have the right man and we are investigating whether he could be connected to other threats against the school,” Claus Bo Danø, of the East Jutland Police, told DR News.
Aarhus was also the location of a bomb threat last Monday, when a caller said that a bomb had been placed in a municipal office building in the city’s Viby neighbourhood.
Police evacuated 300 people, cordoned off the area and searched the building using five bomb sniffing dogs. No bombs were found and the investigation into who was behind the threat has turned up no suspects.
It doesn’t appear that would-be bombers are limited to Denmark, however. Earlier this month, Swedish police arrested a man in Malmö, after he threatened to detonate a bomb on a train headed for Sweden from Copenhagen. Witnesses said that the man seemed deranged and repeatedly threatened to detonate bombs on the train and at Copenhagen Airport.
A portion of Strøget, Copenhagen’s pedestrian shopping street, was closed last Tuesday evening while police investigated a suspicious suitcase that had sat unattended for several hours. It turned out to be empty.
In perhaps the most bizarre recent incident, Copenhagen Central Station was completely shut down for several hours last Wednesday after a couple placed a package suspected of being a bomb on a train bound for Sweden.
Witnesses heard the woman ask the man “Was the package placed correctly?” The station was evacuated and train traffic was stopped for several hours after passengers called in a bomb warning. A military bomb unit determined that the package contained a car battery and some windscreen wipers. The couple later contacted Copenhagen police and explained that they left the items on the train to send them to a friend and save delivery costs. Police said that no charges have been filed.
