'Terrorist' may turn out to be tourist with an interest in zoo animals

Yesterday's breaking news about detaining a terrorist in a gas plant may well turn out to be a misunderstanding. A 23-year-old French citizen of Algerian origin, Mickael Neyrolles, was caught on Friday taking pictures of a gas plant in Swarzędz. He was arrested for three months after the prosecutors office charged him with acting to harm public safety. The basis for his arrest were two photo albums containing pictures of, among others, a ZOO in China and Russian stores, taken by the police to be pictures of objects of strategic importance. "But he even made pictures of unusual dustbins when he thought they would fit his travel album," said Elżbieta S., a woman he lived with. The police used dogs to find traces of explosives in their apartment but the only thing they found were matches. "The evidence is poor. The dogs could have mistaken match sulfur for explosives," said one of the investigating officers. Internal Security Agency suspect that even if he was not a terrorist himself, he might have tried to distract police attention before another terrorist attack somewhere else in the country. (Rzeczpospolita, p. A3; Gazeta Wyborcza, p. 4) D.W.