Bomb threat suspect nabbed in Shanghai

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, September 17, 2003

Bomb threat suspect nabbed in Shanghai

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As city officials were making the final preparations for Saturday night's opening ceremony of the Shanghai Tourism Festival, local cops were feverishly searching for a young man who had threatened to set off explosives all over the city.

They arrested Xu Jun, a 25-year-old unemployed man, in the early hours of Saturday morning on charges of making a false terrorist threat.

The search began on Friday morning when cops found a floppy disk in a police mailbox at Xintiandi, a popular dinning and entertainment area in Luwan District.

The disk contained a document saying explosives had been hidden at various points around the city and they would be detonated if police didn't meet a list of demands, according to Shanghai Public Security Bureau spokeswoman Yang Ye.

"He claimed that he would detail his demands the next day and he would detonate explosives all over the city if he was not satisfied."

With the tourism festival set to open the next day, police called in all of their resources to track down the author of the threat.

After analyzing the message, police believed they were after a young, unemployed man with little education but some computer skills.

The investigation was also helped by witnesses who saw a young man put something into the police mailbox.

Police launched a search of 12 square kilometers around Xintiandi on Friday night, describing the suspect to various neighborhood committees.

The hunt soon focused in on Xu, who lives on Zizhong Road near Xintiandi and lost his job at a local computer company in August. He was picked up at his home at about 12:45 am on Saturday, Yang said.

Police said a search of his home found no explosives.

Xu faces up to five years in prison on charges of making a false terrorist threat, a charge that was only added to China's criminal statutes on December 29, 2001.

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