Slovak held in Dublin over botched security drill

Glaucus · 5 Jan 2010 at 22:53

Irish police arrested a Slovak man on Tuesday but released him without charge after Slovak authorities apologised for planting explosives in his luggage as part of an airport security exercise. Skip related content
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"The Slovakian Interior Minister has conveyed to Justice Minister Dermot Ahern his government's profound regret for this incident," the Irish government said in a statement.

The man, one of the thousands of east Europeans working in Ireland, flew back to Dublin on Saturday after his Christmas holidays. After a tip-off from Slovakia, Irish army experts removed from his apartment a small amount of explosives he had unwittingly brought back in his bag.

The man, in his 40s, was one of several passengers in whose luggage the Slovak authorities had concealed forbidden items without their knowledge to test their airport security.

Airport security has been the subject of international attention since a Nigerian suspected of ties to militants in Yemen tried to blow up a U.S. passenger jet on Christmas Day with explosives concealed in his underpants.

(Reporting by Andras Gergely; additional reporting by Martin Santa in Bratislava and Padraic Halpin in Dublin, editing by Tim Pearce)

could you imagine getting arrested for that, Brown trouser moment time.
Fine test security, but why not use people in the know.

So much for all these security measure then, what a waste of time. Pretty shocking.

Ross1234 · 5 Jan 2010 at 22:55

If you did that on a flight to america.. they would shoot you!

qqg3 · 5 Jan 2010 at 23:43

Ross1234 said:
If you did that on a flight to america.. they would shoot you!

Increased risk definetley! Crazy idea chucking explosives in random luggage, but clearly security is inadequate.

Clum · 6 Jan 2010 at 00:44

Would it really have been too much trouble for them to just go and buy their own suitcase?

Crazy Slovaks.

Bennie-Mac · 6 Jan 2010 at 00:57

Jesus thats a bit of an an extreme test! What if hed panicked when caught and tried to make a run for it? He would have been shot.

Greenlizard0 · 6 Jan 2010 at 00:59

Err yea use people that at least know about it before hand.

But then saying that wouldn't they still get through though with stuff in their bag?

Darg · 6 Jan 2010 at 01:39

crazy. We don't want people with explosives here, even if they don't know they have explosives! w t f springs to mind.

Greenlizard0 · 6 Jan 2010 at 01:45

Gotta wonder if this stuff happens all the time. Would explain why when you need to collect a number of suitcases, there's always one that's last. :mad:

muon · 6 Jan 2010 at 02:00

What if they didn't get the tip off. Then a few months down the line he gets arrested for having explosives. The Slovakians would have forgotten about it and he'd be screwed.

MikeHunt79 · 6 Jan 2010 at 02:25

Best prank ever!

That said, I bet the guy who was arrested thought he was being set up...

Sinque · 6 Jan 2010 at 02:37

MikeHunt79 said:
Best prank ever! That said, I bet the guy who was arrested thought he was being set up...

Well yeah, 'cause he didnt do it

alexthecheese · 6 Jan 2010 at 08:24

Sends a bit of a bad message this little incidence, doesn't it?

semi-pro waster · 6 Jan 2010 at 08:28

AcidHell2 said:
Fine test security, but why not use people in the know.

You can 'lie' much more convincingly when you don't know you've got explosives in your bag? Although answering the "did you pack your bag yourself?" question should perhaps have caught him out - "no, a nice man from the Slovakian Secret Service handed me my bag, strangely it was several kilos heavier and had started ticking but I thought nothing of it".

I do wonder about the tip-off part as well though, if that hadn't been done was airport security likely to detect it anyway? You've got to hope so or all this heightened security begins to look a bit like putting an Elastoplast on an amputation.

Glaucus · 6 Jan 2010 at 08:31

semi-pro waster said:
I do wonder about the tip-off part as well though, if that hadn't been done was airport security likely to detect it anyway? .

As it was Irish police that arrested him, meaning he must have already flown :eek:

.

Well I'm assuming they did not plant the explosives in foreign soil.

faugusztin · 6 Jan 2010 at 08:38

As living in Slovakia, it is pretty normal to see stuff like this happens as our police have pretty stupid people... On other side, few years ago France had same problem (putting something to find in random people luggage, and they also "lost" one), then they stopped doing these tests.

If Slovakia would be a normal country, then our minister responsible for police would step down today, together with the highest ranked police member. But because we don't live in such country (our government is there just to steal as much as possible), i don't expect anything like this hapening.

On side note, i hope that the guy who has been arrested will sue Slovakia and get at least 100k€ as compensation.

Dev2 · 6 Jan 2010 at 08:54

A similar incident happened in Japan. They placed a significant amount of drugs in a passengers bag unknown to them.

Then they lost him. I understand the need to test security measures but this guy could have landed in Thailand or China and had been charged with drug trafficking which carries the death penalty. No one knows what happened after that. Scary stuff.

I'm glad to see the Irish guards caught your man and resolved the issue properly.

On a side note, Irish police would not have shot him if he tried to escape. We don't give our police side arms.

semi-pro waster · 6 Jan 2010 at 08:58

Dev2 said:
On a side note, Irish police would not have shot him if he tried to escape. We don't give our police side arms.

Not even for airport security? We don't tend to arm our officers on the mainland either but in the airports that I've been to in the past few years there have been a number of police with MP5s or whatever it is they carry.

regulus · 6 Jan 2010 at 09:01

faugusztin said:
As living in Slovakia, it is pretty normal to see stuff like this happens as our police have pretty stupid people... On other side, few years ago France had same problem (putting something to find in random people luggage, and they also "lost" one), then they stopped doing these tests.

If Slovakia would be a normal country, then our minister responsible for police would step down today, together with the highest ranked police member. But because we don't live in such country (our government is there just to steal as much as possible), i don't expect anything like this hapening.

On side note, i hope that the guy who has been arrested will sue Slovakia and get at least 100k€ as compensation.

Hmm, I don't think Fico is a carpetbagger and thief. I like what he is doing for Slovakia and follow your politics closely. I went from Bratislava to Kosice for the first time in 2005 where I had to keep bribing people for all sorts of things. I literally came back from Slovakia again on Sunday where I was skiing in the Tatras and things have improved tons in the past 5 years since I've been going there.

gjc10212 · 6 Jan 2010 at 09:35

regulus said:
Hmm, I don't think Fico is a carpetbagger and thief. I like what he is doing for Slovakia and follow your politics closely. I went from Bratislava to Kosice for the first time in 2005 where I had to keep bribing people for all sorts of things. I literally came back from Slovakia again on Sunday where I was skiing in the Tatras and things have improved tons in the past 5 years since I've been going there.

I'm flying to Slovakia but since the demise of SkyEurope there are now no direct flights to Kosice. We are thinking of flying to Poprad with Danube Wings.... who did you fly with?

regulus · 6 Jan 2010 at 11:59

gjc10212 said:
I'm flying to Slovakia but since the demise of SkyEurope there are now no direct flights to Kosice. We are thinking of flying to Poprad with Danube Wings.... who did you fly with?

Flew with Austrian this time to Vienna, and from there to Kosice. You could fly to Poprad but it's a good 90min drive to Kosice from there. I also flew with CSA on a previous occasion to Prague and then to Kosice from there.

SkyEurope going under is a real annoyance making it harder to get to Kosice.