Police defuse bomb in Talinn apartment

Estonian police yesterday defused a bomb in the Tallinn apartment of a man who had apparently planned to use it to commit suicide.

Security Police would not identify the suspect by name, as is customary in Estonia, but said he was 44 years old and was a native Russian speaker living on Pae Street in an area that has seen a series of explosions, some fatal, over the past 10 years.

Police said they were tipped off by neighbours and found a live bomb containing 200 grams of TNT in the suspect’s apartment. The suspect was detained outside his apartment.

Police evacuated the apartment buildings adjacent to the suspect’s and a bomb squad team defused the bomb.

In sharp contrast to the medieval charm of downtown Tallinn, the Soviet-era Lasnamae district, which is home to Pae Street, is made up of rows of run-down apartment blocks built in the 1970s and ’80s.

Most of the more than 100,000 residents belong to Estonia’s Russian-speaking minority.