Terror arrest

Police in Slovakia have announced the arrest of a man who is being called the country's first terror suspect. The 33-year-old is accused of plotting to detonate homemade bombs during church services in the country.

"The accused built a number of explosive devices which he had inserted into fire extinguishers and propane tanks," said Slovakia's police chief, Jan Packa, at a press conference on Thursday. "We discovered that he'd tested the devices several times in woods near his house. The power of the explosive would have been roughly equal to that of a rocket-propelled grenade."

Packa said that the accused had admitted he had planned to leave the explosive devices in backpacks in several churches and detonate the bombs remotely.

The suspect, a pharmacology graduate, was already in police custody on drug charges. He was still in custody on those charges when police searched his home and found the explosive devices.

The police chief said the man, from East Slovakia, was apparently motivated by his hatred of organised religion, claiming he wanted to dissuade people from going to church. His parents reacted with shock, telling Slovak media their son was neither a drug dealer nor a terrorist.

The suspect could face up to 25 years in prison if convicted of terrorism.

The Slovak authorities are keen to repair their rather battered image after a botched security exercise made international headlines. Early in January - just days after the failed attempt to blow up an airliner bound for Detroit - police at Slovakia's Poprad airport planted high-grade plastic explosives in an unsuspecting passenger's luggage as part of a training drill. The explosives were successfully detected by sniffer dogs at the airport, but they were never removed and the bag was later loaded on to a flight to Dublin. Its owner was briefly arrested by Irish counter-terrorism police before being released.

Author: Rob Cameron (mz/dpa/ap)
Editor: Susan Houlton