Bomb made safe with just minutes to spare

ONE of two mail bombs sent from Yemen last week was disarmed just 17 minutes before it was set to go off, the French interior minister said yesterday.

Brice Hortefeux provided no other details in an interview on France’s state-run France-2 television, or say where he got the information about the timing.

“One of the packages was defused only 17 minutes before the moment that it was set to explode,” he said. The French Interior Ministry would not elaborate on Hortefeux’s comment.

When investigators pulled the Chicago-bound packages off cargo planes in England and the United Arab Emirates last Friday, they found the bombs wired to mobile phones and hidden in the toner cartridges of computer printers. The communication cards had been removed and the phones could not receive calls, officials said, making it likely the terrorists intended the alarm or timer functions to detonate the bombs, US officials have said.

They also that each bomb was attached to a syringe containing lead azide, a chemical initiator that would have detonated PETN explosives packed into each printer cartridge. Both PETN and a syringe were used in the failed bombing last Christmas of a Detroit-bound airliner.

Investigators have centred on the Yemeni al-Qaida faction’s top bomb maker, who had previously designed a bomb that failed to go off on a crowded US-bound passenger jetliner last Christmas.

This time, authorities believe that master bomb maker Ibrahim al-Asiri packed four times as much explosives into the bombs hidden last week on flights from Yemen.

Meanwhile, a Greek judge charged two men with terrorism yesterday as police announced that a 14th parcel bomb had been dealt with after delivery at the French embassy in Athens.

A court official said that Panayotis Argyrou, 22, a chemistry student, and Gerassimos Tskalos, 24, had refused to speak when brought before the judge, saying they did not recognise the procedure, a court source said.

They were charged with committing acts of terrorism, belonging to a criminal organisation, possession and use of bombs and explosives, as well as refusing to give their identities and fingerprints.

Both were remanded in custody.

The pair were arrested on Monday as a wave of parcel bombs was launched, addressed to embassies in the Greek capital and European leaders and institutions.

The court was told Argyrou and Tskalos were in possession of two packages, addressed to French President Nicolas Sarkozy and the Belgian embassy in Athens.