Slovak security left red-faced in explosives bungle
Share
A section of inner-city Dublin was sealed off yesterday as an anti-terrorist unit swooped on the home of a man who unwittingly smuggled in explosives planted in his luggage by the Slovakian security services.
Ninety grammes of explosives were found at the flat of the 49 year-old electrician who had just returned to Ireland after visiting family in the Slovakian capital of Bratislava. The explosives had been put in his luggage not by international terrorists, but the Slovakian security forces as a part of training exercise.
The man had carried the explosive from Bratislava airport - where it should have been intercepted by sniffer dogs and other security devices - to Ireland. The exercise was part of a review of security procedures following a Nigerian man's attempt to blow up an American airliner as it readied for touch down at Detroit airport on Christmas Day.
Slovakian police realized that the explosives had slipped through all the monitoring devices at Bratislava’s Poprad-Tatry airport and contacted Irish police yesterday to break the news. But questions are being raised as to why it took them three days to raise the alarm. The Slovakian Interior Ministry has expressed its “profound regret” over the mix-up.
Some also feel the incident has exposed holes in Ireland's domestic security. Opposition MP Charlie Flanagan is demanding an investigation into how Dublin’s airport security was "so lax as to allow a significant amount of explosives enter the country undetected”.
