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UK Airport Fails Security Check -
British government officials are talking to the operators of one of the UK's busiest airports after reports that a fake bomb and a gun were smuggled through security.
It said a fake bomb complete with battery, wires and timer was put through an X-ray machine without being spotted.
Security guards at London Stansted Airport in Essex failed to detect weapons, which were planted on inspectors as part of security checks, according to The Sun newspaper. The inspector managed to walk through a metal detector with a gun and reach a position to board an aircraft. The metal detector did go off but staff who searched him with hand scanners missed the weapon, the paper reported.
The checks were carried out as part of a regular programme by the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions. A spokesman for the department confirmed that it had been talking to BAA, which runs Stansted, but would not disclose the results of the security checks.
"The department is concerned to make sure that the highest standards of security are maintained at UK airports and regularly conduct a variety of inspections and tests," he said. "We cannot comment on results of individual tests for operational reasons but we have contacted BAA and are discussing the results of this, the paper reported. Stansted security staff have been offered more training, it added. Stansted is the UK's fourth-busiest airport after Heathrow, Gatwick and Manchester, and Britain's designated airport for hijacked flights.
Report from Airwise.com Oct 3, 2000
An accused mail bomber made his first appearance Friday at Kelowna provincial court following an arrest the night before at an international border crossing.
Andrija Tramsek, 57, a lumber worker, faces charges for allegedly sending an explosive device in the mail, with intent to cause serious injury or property damage.
Canada Customs officers arrested Tramsek at 10:20 p.m. Thursday, at the Canada-U.S. border crossing just south of Osoyoos.
Tramsek, also known as Andy Davis, was in his truck and camper, accompanied by his wife. As a man attempted to re-enter Canada, a customs officer recognized the man as someone that the authorities had been looking for.
"Something clicked about the individual and the licence plate," Port of Osoyoos customs superintendent Derek Collins said. "When we did the background checks on our data, it came out that this man was indeed the subject of a Canada-wide warrant."
The Criminal Code charges against him relate to two letter bombings on different dates.
The first bomb, a small explosive device in a box wrapped in white paper, arrived at the offices of the regional health board on Sept. 15. An RCMP bomb squad from Vancouver safely detonated the bomb that day.
Three days later, Kelowna lawyer Keith Purvin-Good and his wife were in their car, collecting a package from a mail box a few steps from their home.
Purvin-Good said they pulled into the driveway and had the car doors open when the bomb detonated. However, neither Purvin-Good nor his wife were badly injured.
Glenn Bohn, Southam Newspapers; Vancouver Sun 30 September 2000
Bomb explodes in Barcelona newspaper office
Police in Spain say a parcel bomb has exploded at the offices of the daily newspaper, El Mundo, in Barcelona, injuring two policemen.
The bomb was left in the building by three armed people, two men and a woman, who said they were members of the extreme-left movement, GRAPO. The three fled and the building was evacuated, but the police officers were caught in the blast.
GRAPO which stands for the First of October Anti-Fascist Resistance Group was founded in 1975, three days after the regime of General Francisco Franco executed five far-left opponents. The group has been blamed for a some eighty assassinations and for a recent series of bombings of banks and employment agencies.
From the newsroom of the BBC World Service 29 September 2000
A 70-year-old pensioner escaped injury when he opened a package at his home in Bournemouth, Dorset, which exploded with a loud bang on 19 September.
Three other suspect parcels were intercepted by police in recent days at a Royal Mail sorting office. All of the packages were addressed to the homes of Tesco customers in Bournemouth and Poole.
A Tesco store received a blackmail letter on 4 September.
 I hate to think what could have happened if it
had been opened by a child or by someone suffering from a heart
condition
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70-year-old parcel bomb victim
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"Our attempts to make contact with the blackmailer have been unsuccessful," he said. "It is important that we speak to this person, whoever he or she might be, as soon as possible."
The 70-year-old victim of Tuesday's bomb said he took the parcel, which was in a Jiffy-bag, up to his wife's bedroom, to open.
"Immediately there was a very loud bang," he said. "The shock caused me to drop it on the dressing table where it continued to spark and give off a lot of smoke. The smoke blinded both of us."
"It was bad enough for us, but I hate to think what could have happened if it had been opened by a child or by someone suffering from a heart condition. It could have killed them," the man said.
Mr Lee said seven other Tesco customers had received threatening letters from the blackmailer.
John Purnell, director of security for Tesco, said the company were working closely with Dorset police to ensure the safety of all their customers.
"Like the police we do not know why only Tesco customers have been targeted, but we have already taken all of the necessary steps to keep all our customers fully informed and aware of what they need to do if they receive a suspicious package," he said.
He denied that the blackmailer was using Tesco's customer database to find customers addresses.
"We go to great lengths to safeguard our database," Mr Purnell said.
Taken from BBC News 21 September 2000
Fugitive with explosives found dead
A 62-year-old man who disappeared in May just before authorities discovered a large cache of explosive chemicals and detonators at his home in Front Royal, Va., has been found dead in Bogota, Colombia.
Colombian officials used photographs and fingerprints to identify the man they found dead as fugitive Gerral T. Foster, and they notified the FBI on Thursday night, said Mary Johlie, an FBI spokeswoman in Richmond. The Colombians have not yet determined the cause or time of Foster's death, she said.
Foster had been the subject of a nationwide search since May 3, when Warren County sheriff's deputies found hundreds of pounds of explosives, which included photo fixer and 50 pounds of ammonium nitrate, a fertilizer used to blow up the federal building in Oklahoma City five years ago. The deputies also found stashes of toxic acids and what Warren County Sheriff Lynn C. Armentrout called a "library of bomb-making literature."
Although none of the explosive materials is illegal, authorities said that if they had been mixed and fashioned into a bomb, it could have produced an explosion that would have dwarfed the Oklahoma City bombing and blown out windows 10 miles away.
Many of Foster's neighbors, however, told reporters that they considered Foster no threat, just an eccentric.
Extracted from the Washington Post, 10 September 2000
Pipe bombs found in boy's home
A 13-year-old Oxon Hill youth was charged as a juvenile yesterday with knowingly manufacturing an explosive device in an attempt to frighten after authorities found 21 pipe bombs in the apartment he shared with his mother.
The youth was ordered held pending a Sept. 25 hearing. The boy's name is not being published because he is charged as a juvenile.
Prince George's County fire officials were called to the boy's apartment in the Heather Hills development in the 5900 block of Fisher Road about 9:30 p.m. Sunday after one of the devices denotated, damaging windows of the apartment building and a pickup truck in the parking lot.
Officials said they found the additional devices in a box in the living room of the apartment. A robot was used to defuse each of the pipe bombs--described as galvanized steel about 1 1/2 inches in diameter and 6 to 10 inches long. Fire officials spent most of yesterday defusing the pipe bombs, a process that kept residents of 20 apartments in the complex out of their homes for almost 24 hours.
Prince George's County Fire Chief Ronald J. Siarnicki said it was the "largest seizure of explosive devices that have been made by an individual probably in the history of Prince George's County."
Fire department spokesman Mark Brady said it was unclear how the first device detonated. Officials originally believed that the youth was handling it inside the apartment but reported later that investigators said he could have fired it from the apartment's balcony.
Brady said it was safer to defuse the pipe bombs in the apartment than to move the highly volatile explosives because "pipe bombs are very unpredictable."
Fire officials said a search of the apartment yielded a diary, apparently written by the boy, and a computer that were described as "key evidence" in a case. They said they suspect the boy learned how to make bombs from information he obtained on the Internet.
extracted from the Washington Post 6 September 2000
