Posted on 09/26/2002 5:59:00 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
PARIS (Reuters) - French police found plastic explosives on Wednesday on board a Royal Maroc charter plane that landed in the northeastern French airport of Metz from Marrakesh, French and Moroccan sources said on Thursday.
A French judicial source said French police discovered 100 grams (3.5 ounces) of explosive without a detonator in the arm rest of one of the seats, wrapped in aluminum paper.
The source said the explosive could be the same type of material allegedly used by accused shoebomber Richard Reid, who has pleaded not guilty to charges he tried to destroy an airliner departing from Paris with 97 people on board in December by detonating explosives in his shoes.
The Paris prosecutor's anti-terrorist division has launched a probe and sent experts to identify the explosive.
Moroccan government sources earlier identified the substance as semtex, and said just 27 grams of it had been found.
"They found a bottle with 27 grams (0.9 ounce) of semtex. There was no detonator," one of the sources said.
Sniffer dogs found the device hidden between two seats during a check of the aircraft after passengers had disembarked at around 10:30 p.m., sources close to French police said.
There was nothing to identify the origin of the explosive or to know who had left it in the plane, the Moroccan source said.
A delay by customs officials in notifying judicial authorities meant the plane had already returned to Marrakesh, the French judicial source said.
Moroccan police were alerted to intercept and question the passengers. French judicial officials believe the owner of the detonator could be among them, the source said.
The theory is that a first person could have deposited the explosives on the way to France and a second person was charged with detonating them on the return flight, the French judicial source said. The plane made a stopover at Marseille on France's southern coast before continuing on to its final destination of Metz.
Anti-terrorist police also want to question the passengers who got off the flight in Metz, near the Belgian, Luxembourg, and German borders.
Reid, a Briton, has been accused by U.S. officials of training with Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network in Afghanistan. Washington blames bin Laden for masterminding the September 11 suicide hijack attacks on the United States.
Security measures in France and for French foreigners abroad were stepped up after the U.S. attacks.
The Group of Eight nations, of which France is a member, agreed in June on security initiatives to prevent attacks on transportation, including strengthening cockpit doors on passenger planes by next year.
France detains Pakistani for links with 'shoe-bomber'
By Paul Michaud
PARIS, June 17: French judicial authorities have decided to place under detention a Pakistani national, Ghulam-Mustafa Rama, 64, who is suspected of having provided logistical support to Richard Reid , the British national who has become known as the "shoe-bomber" for having attempted to set off an explosive charge contained in his shoe during a flight last Dec 22 to Miami.
Mr Rama, who is also the founder of the French branch of Markaz Dawa al-Irshad, had already been arrested by French police last Wednesday (June 12) at his home in the Paris suburb of Evry during an early morning raid which also saw the arrest of another, unidentified, Pakistani national, and three Franco-Algerians.
The other arrested Pakistani has been released, say police, while two of the Franco-Algerians have been detained along with Mr Rama. All three are now being accused by the French magistrate - and the country's principal judicial expert on terrorism - Jean-Louis Bruguiere, of having provided logistical support to Richard Reid, who spent several days in their company prior to his boarding American Airlines flight 063 at Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport a few miles north of the Paris neighbourhood where he was housed by Mr Rama and the two Franco-Algerians. [more at link above]
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