Amsterdam: Terror alarm possibly act of revenge

Amsterdam: Terror alarm possibly act of revenge

Police freed all seven suspects.

One of the suspects, a 58 year old man who was arrested in front of a mosque on Thursday with a big show of force, is considering a damage claim.  According to his lawyer the man was in shock.

The woman who called the police from Brussels Wednesday night about a possible terror attack in the shopping area near the Amsterdam Arena, was not yet located.  According to her, three men were on their way in a vehicle from Belgium with explosives.  The three men and explosives were not found.  The police thinks this might be an act of revenge.


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Police released all seven people arrested after an anonymous warning of a plot to plant bombs in an Amsterdam shopping district, prosecutors said Friday, easing fears that the Dutch capital was the target of a terrorist threat by Moroccan immigrants.


Police had offered no evidence to give credibility to the bomb threat, which coincided with the fifth anniversary of the deadly Madrid train bombings.


But the public prosecutors office defended the police response, which included closing a major entertainment and shopping district Thursday and arresting the suspects, all originally described as Dutch-Moroccans. The prosecutor later said at least two held only Moroccan nationality.


Spokeswoman Alexandra Oswald said the nature of the warning and information it contained had justified the action, but she did not elaborate.


After a day of interrogation and a search of locations linked to the suspects, the prosecutors office said all six men and a woman were freed for lack of evidence to support criminal allegations against them.


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Source: IHT (English), AD (Dutch)

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