Two Swedish teenagers charged over blasts near Israel’s Copenhagen embassy

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COPENHAGEN (Reuters) -Two Swedish teenagers were charged on Thursday with possessing five hand grenades and detonating two of them on a rooftop near Israel’s embassy in Copenhagen, and were remanded in custody.

The teenagers, aged 16 and 19, were detained on Wednesday on a train at Copenhagen’s main railway station and pleaded not guilty during preliminary questioning on Thursday in a Copenhagen city court.

The prosecutor gave details of the charges but the court banned publication of their names. Police said they had been remanded in custody until Oct. 30.

No one was injured in the two explosions early on Wednesday, but the building near the embassy sustained some damage, investigators said.

A third man, aged 19, was detained elsewhere in the Danish capital and was released after questioning, Danish police said. It was investigating whether the embassy was the target of the explosions.

The blasts in the Danish capital followed a surge in tensions in the Middle East.

Israel, which has been fighting the Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip for nearly a year, has sent troops into southern Lebanon after months of cross-border exchanges of fire with the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement. Iran fired a barrage of missiles at Israel on Tuesday.

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

Swedish authorities have previously said security police averted several planned attacks linked to Iranian security services using local criminal networks, a charge that Iran has said is “baseless”.

(Reporting by Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen; editing by Mark Heinrich and Timothy Heritage)