Riga: Police in the Baltic state of Latvia assured the public Tuesday that a pre-dawn blast in the capital, Riga, was not a terrorist attack but a botched attempt to blow up and rob a cash machine by filling it with natural gas.
The incident, which left one of the suspected robbers dead and the other one in critical condition, occurred at around 4 a.m. in the suburb of Bolderaja.
An anti-terrorism unit quickly established that the blast was related to criminal ineptitude, not terrorism.
"They drilled holes (in the machine) and prepared to fill it with natural gas in order to detonate it by remote control. During this process there was an explosion," police chief Andrejs Grisins told reporters.
Grisins said that the blast appeared to have happened before the gang could pump all the gas into the ATM. As a result, the gas cylinder the two were carrying blew up by accident.
AFP
