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MALMÖ EUROVISION COUNTDOWN

POLICE

Eurovision gets security hike after past threats

Swedish police announced on Wednesday an increase in security at Malmö's Eurovision Song Contest in May, including metal detectors for spectators and extra bomb-sniffing dogs from around the country.

Eurovision gets security hike after past threats

There have been bomb threats at Eurovision in previous years and Swedish police are taking no chances in Malmö.

“There have even been demonstrations outside [in the past] but nothing that has ruined the broadcast. We will ensure that it doesn’t happen here either,” Carl-Axel Andersson of the Malmö police told Sveriges Television (SVT).

Officers will enlist the help of sniffer dogs from other regions of the country, while spectators themselves will have to go through airport-like security conditions, including passing through metal detectors when entering the arena.

“We’re going to search all the areas where there’ll be delegates so they can work in a safe environment,” Andersson added.

Potential protests and threats are more likely to be directed towards certain countries, according to the Andersson, who said Israel would be granted extra protection, with police protection at their hotel around the clock.

“We’ll be keeping an eye on Israel as it always has an accompanying threat,” he told SVT.

The Israeli ambassador Isaac Bachman, meanwhile, does not think Israel will be singled out.

“The contest involves so many different countries. We trust the Swedish authorities and feel like we’re in good hands,” he said.

TT/The Local/og

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POLICE

Denmark convicts man over bomb joke at airport

A Danish court on Thursday gave a two-month suspended prison sentence to a 31-year-old Swede for making a joke about a bomb at Copenhagen's airport this summer.

Denmark convicts man over bomb joke at airport

In late July, Pontus Wiklund, a handball coach who was accompanying his team to an international competition, said when asked by an airport agent that
a bag of balls he was checking in contained a bomb.

“We think you must have realised that it is more than likely that if you say the word ‘bomb’ in response to what you have in your bag, it will be perceived as a threat,” the judge told Wiklund, according to broadcaster TV2, which was present at the hearing.

The airport terminal was temporarily evacuated, and the coach arrested. He later apologised on his club’s website.

“I completely lost my judgement for a short time and made a joke about something you really shouldn’t joke about, especially in that place,” he said in a statement.

According to the public prosecutor, the fact that Wiklund was joking, as his lawyer noted, did not constitute a mitigating circumstance.

“This is not something we regard with humour in the Danish legal system,” prosecutor Christian Brynning Petersen told the court.

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