Police release female bomb threat suspect

26 March 2004

AMSTERDAM — Three bomb scares in one day saw a female train passenger arrested in connection with the threat that closed the train station at Roosendaal near the Belgian border on Thursday. The woman was released later that night.

A public prosecution spokesperson said on Friday that police could not draw any conclusions from the woman’s statement about her possible involvement in the bomb threat and released her after questioning. Police investigations into the matter continue.

The woman’s arrest came as two other false bomb scares led to the closure of Amsterdam Central Station and Leiden’s main train station on Thursday.

A police spokesman said experts from the EOD bomb disposal squad found a suspect package at the Leiden station on Thursday night, but confirmed it did not contain any explosives. He refused to reveal what was in the package.

Train travel to and from Leiden was shut down at about 10.30pm and several hundred passengers were in the station when police ordered its evacuation. The all clear was given at about 1am, allowing the resumption of train travel.

Delays of about one hour were reported and Dutch rail operator NS deployed buses to transport passengers further, news agency ANP reported.

Since the Madrid bombings on 11 March, police are taking every threat seriously and also ordered the evacuations of Amsterdam Central and Roosendaal Central on Thursday afternoon after bomb threats were made.

Police said the Amsterdam bomb threat was made at about 1.15pm, but refused to reveal who made the warning or what measures had been taken. A spokesman said police know who made the bomb threat.

Train passengers, shop employees and staff of Dutch rail operator NS were directed out of Central Station towards the Prins Hendrikkade and Damrak intersection. No one was allowed near the station and riot police were called in to maintain order.

All train travel to and from the Dutch capital was halted, construction work on the Noord-Zuidlijn metro line was stopped and trams, busses or metros did not stop at or near Central Station either, newspaper De Telegraaf reported.

The evacuation of the station was completed at about 1.45pm and several “bomb spotters” were deployed to look for suspicious objects.

If anything suspicious had been found, experts with the EOD bomb disposal unit would have been called in, but the station was given the all clear at about 2.30pm.

Meanwhile, a separate bomb threat also forced the cancellation of train travel at the city of Roosendaal at about 1.45pm, rail network administrator Prorail said. Train travel to and from Breda, Roosendaal and Lage Zwaluwe was stopped.

The Roosendaal station was also evacuated, but no suspicious packages were found at the station and the bomb scare was declared a false alarm. Authorities gave the all-clear at about 4pm.

Police also stopped the Brussels-Amsterdam international train at Oudenbosch, near Roosendaal, and forced all 150 passengers to leave the train one at a time and undergo searches.

An anonymous telephone call was made mid-afternoon alerting police that one of the passengers was connected to the bomb threats. Police arrested one woman, but released her on Thursday night.

Thursday’s bomb scares come after the A4 motorway at Rijswijk and train travel between The Hague and Delft was cancelled due to the discovery of a suspect package on Wednesday.

No explosives were found in the package and the motorway and railway was re-opened later that day.

Subject: Dutch news