TRAMS were suspended on Obchodna Street in downtown Bratislava the morning of April 23 after an anonymous person announced that a bomb had been placed in a bank on the street.
The police subsequently closed the street and ordered the Bratislava Transport Company (DPB) to prevent trams from entering the street. Traffic was stopped for nearly an hour and caused slight disruptions to tram service on the respective lines, the TASR newswire reported.
The police received an anonymous tip that a bomb was placed in a branch of a bank, but the message did not actually contain specific details about which street or even which city the bomb was supposed to have been in, TASR wrote.
Over the morning of April 23, police took all legal security precautions, but have so far failed to locate any bomb. The employees of the bank branches were evacuated and pyrotechnicians and bomb-sniffing dogs were sent to inspect the bank locations.
The Bratislava investigator has started criminal prosecution for the crime of spreading false alarm, which could bring up to two years in prison.
The bank in question was allegedly Prima Banka, according to the SITA newswire.
Source: TASR, SITA
Compiled by Michaela Terenzani from press reports.
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information
presented in its Flash News postings.