Danish police detain three people after blasts near Israel embassy

This content was published on October 2, 2024 - 15:27

3 minutes

By Tom Little and Stine Jacobsen

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) -Danish police said on Wednesday they were investigating two explosions likely caused by hand grenades near Israel’s Copenhagen embassy and had detained three young Swedes for questioning.

Two of the men were apprehended on a train at Copenhagen’s main railway station while the third man was detained elsewhere in the Danish capital shortly after the blasts, Copenhagen Police Chief Superintendent Jens Jespersen told reporters.

Two hand grenades were likely to have caused the explosions which had caused some damage to a building around 100 metres (yards) from the embassy, he added.

“We can’t say for sure if the embassy has been or not been the target of these explosions … We are also investigating if they have acted alone, on request or together with others,” Jespersen said.

He declined to say how the three, aged between 15 and 20 years old, were linked to the incident but said police expected to file preliminary charges against two of them for illegal weapons possession.

This year at least 10 Swedes have been charged in Denmark with attempted murder or weapons possession, stirring alarm and harsh criticism in Denmark over the spread of organised crime.

The Copenhagen explosions happened at around 3:20 a.m. local time (0120 GMT), the Israeli embassy said.

“We are shocked by what has happened. No one was injured, and no one was present at the embassy when the explosions occurred,” a spokesperson for the embassy told Reuters.

SOARING MIDDLE EAST TENSIONS

The Danish security and intelligence service was assisting police with the investigation and assessing the already high security level around locations linked to the Jewish community in Denmark, the service said in a written comment.

The blasts occurred against a backdrop of soaring tensions in the Middle East as Iran attacked Israel with missiles.

Israel, which is fighting Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon, promised to retaliate, stoking fears of a wider war.

Carolineskolen, a Jewish school near the embassy in the Danish capital, would stay closed on Wednesday due to its proximity to the crime scene, the Jewish Community in Denmark told Reuters.

There have also been several recent security incidents near Israel’s embassy in neighbouring Sweden, where police on Tuesday said they were investigating suspected gunfire in the area.

In January, a Stockholm police bomb squad disarmed what investigators called a dangerous object outside the Israeli embassy building.

The incidents in Sweden caused no injuries or significant damage.

Swedish authorities have said security police averted several planned attacks linked to Iranian security services using local criminal networks. Iran has called the Swedish report “baseless”.

(Reporting by Tom Little, Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen, Isabelle Yr Carlsson and Stine Jacobsen in Copenhagen and Marie Mannes in Stockholm; Writing by Terje Solsvik and Niklas Pollard; Editing by Tom Hogue, Michael Perry, Gareth Jones, Alexandra Hudson, William Maclean)