'Prank' leads to alert, evacuations in still tense Denmark

Sep 6, 2007, 18:02 GMT

Copenhagen - Danish police Thursday evacuated three apartment buildings in north-western Copenhagen after a report of suspicious chemicals being stored in the cellar.

But the alert was called off after three hours and the cordons were lifted, with police saying the incident had been a 'youthful prank.'

Preliminary investigation suggested that the containers contained sludge water and some basic liquid.

Power to the neighbourhood was cut and bomb experts were deployed after a report that two teenagers had been seen a few weeks ago in a stairwell with a bottle of liquid. The bottle later exploded in a stairwell.

A second bottle was found, and a deputy landlord put it in the cellar and remembered that, causing the alert.

Tension has remained high since Tuesday when raided 11 locations and arrested eight men on suspicion of bomb-making. Two of the eight were later remanded in custody for 27 days.

Jakob Scharf, head of the Danish security intelligence service (PET) said the men were 'militant Islamists with international connections including to leading al-Qaeda members.'

Meanwhile, Danish media have reported on further links between several individuals who have been in the eye of police in recent terrorist cases.

Three of the men arrested Tuesday were known to have visited a Copenhagen mosque where an imam served as spiritual leader for several suspects in a October 2005 case, the Berlingske Tidende newspaper said.

Other links included telephone conversations between some of the men arrested Tuesday and those involved in the October 2005 case.

Justice Minister Lene Espersen is expected to visit the United States next week to study how authorities there tackle terrorism and crime.

Earlier, several Danish politicians called for more research on what causes some people to support extremist views in the wake of arrests of alleged Islamists accused of bomb-making.