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Bomb atmosphere at the Saxony police: An employee of the Chemnitz fair found explosives that the police had forgotten there in 2020.
Photo: Florian Gaertner / photothek / IMAGO
During renovation work in the Chemnitz exhibition center, an employee discovered explosives that the police had already forgotten during an exercise there last year.
As the State Criminal Police Office announced on Thursday in Dresden, the employee found the block-like object the size of two cigarette packets and recognized it as a possible explosive.
The man then alerted the police.
The inscription was said to have determined that the explosives came from the practice inventory of the State Criminal Police Office.
The block was used in 2020 during a training course for the Saxon police's explosives search dogs.
Probably when the dogs searched the building, the explosives "fell behind a shelf," said the police.
The loss will be processed internally
During the exercise, all prepared hiding spots were photographed so that they could be found again at the end.
Nevertheless, after the exercise, no one noticed that a block of explosives was missing when collecting it.
A special unit of the State Criminal Police Office is responsible for handling explosives, which temporarily stores the explosives and supports the work with the dogs.
According to the police, there was never a risk because it was an extremely safe explosive.
The explosive is PETN, which is widely used in industry and mining.
It is chemically very stable, insoluble in water and does not explode even if you try to ignite it.
Special detonators are required to detonate it.
According to the police, the loss is already being processed internally.
He should have consequences for the regularly necessary exercises with service dogs for the future.
However, the police did not announce which these will be.
There is no criminal offense.
has / AFP