Swedish inventor sparks Denmark bomb scare

[Olesya]

From the article here _http://www.thelocal.se/49474/20130806/

A green-minded Swedish inventor who accidentally triggered neighbouring Denmark's terror police has apologized for scaring people with his wire-laced car, saying his intention was only to save the world from "environmental destruction".

Dan Zethraeus, who works as a television director for Swedish public broadcaster Sveriges Television (SVT), had driven over to Denmark and was making his way back to his car on Tuesday when he encountered police barricades. Clueless to what could have caused the scrum, he retreated to a nearby cafe.

When his phone rang, it was a Swedish reporter asking why his car was at the centre of a large-scale terrorism alert operation in Copenhagen, as wires snaking up from under the chassis over the door had set off their suspicions.

"I rushed off to the police and explained that it was an invention," Zethraeus told The Local. "The bomb squad smiled a bit and weren't particularly upset, but the police were quite tense."

He noted that he had driven his car around with the odd contraption for about a month back home in Sweden, without causing any misunderstandings with law enforcement.

Denmark, meanwhile, has dealt with a heightened terror alert ever since the 2005 publications of caricatures that poked fun at the Muslim prophet Muhammad, that resulted in death threats and a foiled plot to blow up the newsroom of the Jyllands-Posten newspaper in 2010.

"It's an invention and not meant to be perceived as a terror threat," Zethraeus said of his invention, an environmental system which he had hoped to patent in the not-too.distant future. "But I guess that's gone up in smoke, as there's been so much attention due to this."

And while the Swedish inventor said he was sincerely sorry for scaring the Danes, he also said he wished they'd run his licence plates through the register and called him first so he could explain.

"It wouldn't have taken more than a few minutes in such an important case," he told The Local. "I'm sorry that people were frightened, that's not what I wanted, I just wanted to save the world from environmental destruction."

So, with all of these current news 'Al-Queda is gonna get us', travel warnings and embassies closing around the world, the paranoia switch was applied in Denmark too. This Swedish man was amazed by all this reaction. It seems to me that Sweden is still more or less suitable place to live for normal people. I mean, less ponerized in comparison to other countries. I also remembered a video of a dancing policemen posted on SOTT page http://www.sott.net/category/15-Dont-Panic-Lighten-Up?page=2 So, there are some places in the world where policemen are normal people, not the brute robots as in the US.

More about this story, the inventor and his invention here _http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_23806888/electric-car-causes-bomb-scare-denmark

"It's a prototype of an invention that I'm developing that is meant to solve the vehicle traffic of the future," Zethraeus told The Associated Press by phone.
The idea is for the car to run on a "new type of electric road where you transfer electricity to the car while it's in motion," he said. "I am doing tests right now but I took a day off and drove to Copenhagen. I'm sorry that this was mistaken for something else."

He described his invention as a "device that powers the car with electricity from the road" but declined to give more details, saying the technology wasn't patented yet.
Zethraeus, who works as a project manager and director for Swedish Television, said he would remove the equipment from his car when going on road trips in the future.

Police had closed several busy streets around the Kongens Nytorv square and evacuated dozens of people from nearby buildings.

Denmark's intelligence service has said the country remains under a "serious" terror threat following the publication of newspaper cartoons lampooning the Prophet Muhammad in 2005, an act that offended many Muslims.