Grenades at Jakarta airport

JAKARTA (JP): Five hand grenades were found on Friday afternoon in a shipment that had been abandoned for over nine years in a warehouse at the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport.

No further details about the find could be collected since both airport police officers and the airport authorities could not be reached for comment.

But Lt. Col. Suyono from the National Police Bomb Squad insisted on Saturday that none of the grenades, which had been examined by his men, contained detonators.

"We can conclude that without the detonators all the five grenades found in the airport are harmless," the officer told The Jakarta Post.

According to the police report, the grenades were found at 11 a.m. in an abandoned shipment by two employees, Karman and Purnomo, who were conducting a routine inspection of the warehouse, where the airport stores unclaimed items.

The cargo, consisting of a wooden container, was thought to have been sent from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, by Malaysian Airline flight number MH-711 on April 6, 1990.

The cargo had no address, but a note that read, "Exhibition Indonesian Pavilion ASEAN Aero Space 1990".

The two airport employees told police later that the five grenades were in a glass case inside the abandoned cargo.

The airport authorities then alerted the airport's police post, who in turn contacted the bomb squad.

The grenades were then taken to the squad's headquarters at Kelapa Dua, Bogor, and were examined for about two hours.

According to Suyono, the grenades were manufactured by PINDAD, the state ammunition company whose clients include the military. (03)