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Kalinak Deems Explosive Incident as Police Officer's Individual Failure
Wednesday 06 January 2010 Zoom in | Print page
Bratislava, January 6 (TASR) – The Interior Minister views the incident involving explosive travelling from Poprad airport (Presov region) to Dublin in the bags of an unwitting Slovak following a botched police operation as an individual failure of one police officer, ministry spokesman Erik Tomas told TASR on Wednesday.
He added that the officer concerned will face disciplinary proceedings. "To infer responsibility vis-a-vis his superiors, who were updated on the proceedings quite late ... would be unjust and inappropriate," said Tomas, adding that it was the actions of the senior staff were decisive in averting more significant problems.
According to Kalinak, head of the Border and Foreign Police Tibor Mako is an experienced expert who has proven his worth a number of times – such as during Slovakia's preparations in the run-up to the country joining the Schengen Zone.
Tomas added that Kalinak rang up the authorities in Ireland as early as Tuesday. He also got in touch with the Slovak citizen concerned in order to make sure he'd been released by the Irish police and to convey his apologies to him.
`"It's vital to point out that there were good intentions to boost citizens' security. Such security training operations are common at other airports across the world," he added.
Ninety grams of explosive were found in the luggage of a Slovak citizen who boarded a plane in Poprad (Presov region) to Ireland on Saturday. The contraband got into his luggage via a Slovak police security operation that went awry, as the police at the airport hid samples of explosive into luggage of several passengers within an operation aimed at testing the airport's security procedures. However, 90 grams of the contraband got stuck in the straps of the bag of a 49-year-old man and travelled undetected. "The police dog found only a trace of odour, and the police officer – a pyrotechnic expert – was then called off to another job and forgot to take out the second sample (from the luggage area)," explained Mako.
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