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Slovakian flies to Dublin with 90 grams of explosive

'Unconventional security operation' goes seriously awry

A Slovakian electrician flew from Bratislava to Dublin with 90 grams of RDX plastic explosive in his luggage after an "unconventional security operation" went seriously awry, the Times reports.

The unnamed sparks was returning to Ireland, where's he's lived for four years, unaware that his baggage contained enough RDX "to blow up the plane mid-air". The plastic was one of "eight pieces of contraband... planted by the authorities in the baggage of innocent passengers to test the airport’s security procedures".

However, while seven items were detected, the RDX slipped the net and travelled to the Emerald Isle on Saturday.

Inexplicably, the Slovakian authorities didn't contact the Irish until three days after the man had landed, at which point the police "immediately raided the man’s flat in an apartment block in central Dublin, the area was sealed off and residents and businesses were evacuated".

He was arrested and charged under the anti-terrorist Offences Against the State Act, and only released when his government finally convinced the Irish that "his protestations of innocence were genuine".

Ireland’s Justice Minister, Dermot Ahern, expressed concern that Irish police were not informed for three days, while "questions were being asked last night about the legality of the Slovakian authorities’ actions in planting explosives on a citizen for the purpose of a security test", as the Times puts it. ®

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