Prosecutors said investigators were establishing “whether the
motive could be a terror attack.” No one was injured in the
blasts on early Wednesday in a neighborhood with several foreign
diplomatic missions, though the nearby Jewish school was closed
following the explosions.
The pair, who cannot be identified under a court order, were
ordered held for 27 days. They faced preliminary charges of
possessing illegal weapons and carrying five hand grenades. Two
of the grenades blew up when the suspects threw them at a house
near the embassy, prosecutor Søren Harbo said.
“This was pretty close to the Israeli Embassy,” Harbo said
before Thursday's court hearing. The explosions caused damage to
a roof terrace of a nearby house. The diplomatic mission was not
harmed.
Thursday's hearing was held behind closed doors after the
preliminary charges were read. Reporting from inside the court
room, Danish broadcaster DR said the teenagers, aged 16 and 19,
are suspected of acting “in association and together with prior
agreement with one or more perpetrators.”
Both denied the charges, local media reported.
The two suspects were arrested Wednesday shortly before noon on
a train at Copenhagen’s central station. Danish media ran photos
of a man in a white hazmat suit being taken away by police on a
train platform at the station. A third suspect, aged 19, who had
been arrested near the embassy, has been released, police said
Thursday.
In Denmark, the charges are one step short of formal charges and
allow authorities to keep criminal suspects in custody during an
investigation.
In Stockholm, the operative of Sweden’s domestic security agency
SAPO, Fredrik Hallström, said “the latest incident at the
Israeli embassy is not classified as a terrorist crime at the
moment.” His counterpart at the Swedish police’s National
Operations Department, Johan Olsson, told the same press
conference that the charges were of “aggravated weapons
offenses, causing danger or other serious illegal threats and
damage.”
Separately, shots were fired late Tuesday at the Israeli Embassy
in Stockholm. No one was injured. No arrests have been made.
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