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POLICE

France bars 1,000 people posing ‘security risks’

Nearly a thousand people thought to pose security risks have been denied entry into France in the run-up to the COP21 climate talks, the country's interior minister said on Saturday.

France bars 1,000 people posing 'security risks'
French interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve meets French border police at the border with Germany on Saturday. Photo: Frederick Florin/AFP
France imposed stepped-up border controls on November 13, just hours before the Paris attacks, in preparation for the talks. 
 
Bernard Cazeneuve said that the people had been prevented from entering France “because of the risk these people could represent for public order and security in our country.”
 
During a visit to the northeastern city of Strasbourg, he said nearly 15,000 police, gendarmes and customs agents have been deployed to the borders.
   
The aim of the boosted controls is to enable the authorities to reinforce security as the COP21 climate talks officially get under way in Paris on Monday and also to confront the high terrorist threat level facing the country, Cazeneuve said, adding that they would make any necessary arrests.
   
A few hours after the tougher border controls ahead of the climate talks took effect on November 13, extremists carried a series of attacks at several sites in Paris, killing 130 people.
   
The French government, which has declared a state of emergency, said it would continue the increased border security as long as the terrorist threat remains high.

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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