Bomb Defused at Conference on Terrorism

Police defused a suspected IRA bomb Thursday at a conference on terrorism due to be addressed by British Foreign Office Minister William Waldegrave and London Police Chief Peter Imbert.

Cmdr. George Churchill-Coleman, head of Britain’s anti-terrorist police squad, said he believes that the bomb was planted by the Irish Republican Army just hours before the international meeting was due to begin.

He told a news conference that the bomb, planted in a lunch box under the speaker’s lectern, contained “sufficient high explosive that, had the device exploded . . . it would of course have caused death and serious injury.”

Churchill-Coleman said he did not believe that Waldegrave or Imbert were specific targets of the bomb, made of plastic explosive. “The target of the device was the conference,” he said.

Police said the bomb was discovered as delegates began arriving at the Royal Overseas League, the conference’s central London site, for the opening session of the one-day conference on terrorism.