Slovakia sparks scandal by planting bomb as exercise

Slovakian security forces have sparked an international scandal with an anti-terror exercise. To verify the effectiveness of airport controls they put explosives in the bags of an unsuspecting traveller. The controls failed in one case, and the explosives made it as far as Dublin. Both the Irish and the liberal daily Sme are up in arms: "In a constitutional state it is indefensible to use airline passengers as guinea pigs in police exercises. No law can entitle the police to stuff explosives in a traveller's backpack. If the head of the customs police terms this standard practice it only shows that standard practice has degenerated into the crudest form of lawlessness. What this demonstrates is not the failure of a single police officer, but the failure of the entire system. The political responsibility lies with the minister of the interior."

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