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Aarhus man gets prison sentence for making bomb in basement

A 25-year-old man has been sentenced to two years and six months in prison by Denmark’s High Court for making and possessing a bomb.

Published: 16 November 2017 16:22 CET
Aarhus man gets prison sentence for making bomb in basement
The apartment block where the man was detained. Photo: Michael Barrett

Somalian citizen Libaan Ahmed Warsame has also been sentenced with conditional deportation from Denmark.

He was found guilt of making and storing a bomb in the basement of an apartment building on the Peter Fabers Vej residential street in Aarhus.

The device was discovered by a resident in the building in October 2016, and the area was closed off for several areas as armed police evacuated the block and arrested Warsame.

A bomb disposal unit was also despatched to neutralise the device.

The bomb consisted of two explosive components weighing 200 grams, a fuse, detonator and a number of metal objects.

It had the potential to “cause significant damage to surrounding objects and be of great danger to nearby persons,” according to the charge sheet against Warsame.

The 25-year-old’s fingerprints were found on the bag in which the device was stored.

Warsame has denied the charges against him through the trial and also appealed against the initial guilty verdict at Aarhus City Court.

The verdict has now been upheld by the higher Vestre Landsret court.

Though the 25-year-old’s intended purpose for the bomb remains unclear, he has been linked to gang violence in Denmark’s second city.

READ ALSO: Man pleads not guilty after explosives found in Aarhus

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WWII bomb found in Frankfurt safely detonated after mass evacuation

A massive World War II bomb found in Germany's financial capital Frankfurt was safely detonated in the early hours of Thursday, the city's fire service said, allowing tens of thousands of evacuated residents to return to their homes.

Published: 20 May 2021 09:03 CEST
WWII bomb found in Frankfurt safely detonated after mass evacuation
Experts stand on mountains of sand, which were put in place to soften the force of the explosion of the WWII bomb in Frankfurt's Nordend. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Frank Rumpenhorst

The 500-kilogram unexploded bomb was unearthed during construction work on Wednesday in the densely populated Nordend area of the city, a location firefighters said made it a “particular challenge” to remove.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper reported the ordnance had been discovered right next to a children’s playground at a depth of about two metres (6.5 feet).

READ ALSO: What you need to know about WWII bomb disposals in Germany

Its report said the controlled blast, which happened just after midnight, “sounded like thunder rumbling” and left a hole three metres deep and ten metres wide.

Firefighters said that they had covered the bomb with 40 truckloads of sand before detonating it, in order to minimise damage to the surrounding buildings.

Around 25,000 people had been asked to evacuate the area, including the occupants of a nearby community hospital’s neonatal ward.

Among residents who took shelter at a skating rink was 29-year-old Tobias, carrying his pet cat in a cage.

He said he had heard the news over a police loudspeaker and been ordered to leave his home immediately, causing a “bit of stress”.

Barbara, 77, told AFP the news was “a bit of a shock, we don’t expect that”.

However, building works in Germany regularly unearth unexploded World War II ordnance, 76 years after the conflict’s end.

Seven bombs were defused in 2020 on land near Berlin where Tesla plans to build its first factory in Europe for electric cars.  

READ ALSO: WWII bomb in Frankfurt triggers 30m high water fountain

Other bombs were also discovered last year in Frankfurt, Cologne, and Dortmund.

In Frankfurt, the discovery of a 1.4-tonne bomb in 2017 led to the removal of 65,000 people, the biggest such evacuation in Europe since 1945.

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