Bologna to X-Ray Certain Outgoing Packages

Police on Wednesday ordered post offices in the area surrounding Bologna to begin X-raying packages addressed to European institutions after a string of parcel bombs was sent from the city to agencies and officials across the continent.

Investigators suspect that Italian anarchists are responsible for sending four package bombs, all postmarked from Bologna, said Luigi Persico of the municipal police.

None of the bombs caused injuries.

Police are concerned that the perpetrators might strike again over the New Year’s holiday, Persico said. They are also worried about an Italian national holiday, on Tuesday, when candies and presents are often sent by mail.

“All the packages addressed to the offices or institutions of the European Union are to be examined by X-ray,” so that any further explosive packages can be defused, Persico said.

The latest package was intercepted in The Hague on Tuesday at Eurojust, a European law enforcement group.

Two mail bombings were foiled Monday. One device was addressed to the European Central Bank president in Frankfurt, Germany, and one to the director of Europol, a police intelligence agency also based in The Hague.

On Saturday, European Commission President Romano Prodi opened a package at his home in Bologna and it burst into flames. He was not injured.

Police in Bologna ordered postal officials in the region to watch out “above all for those packages that have a suspicious sender address or a strange shape,” Persico said.

He said Italian police were “in continuous contact via Interpol with police in Germany and in the Netherlands.”

Officials have not yet made any arrests.

An Italian group calling itself the Informal Anarchic Federation took credit for setting two time bombs that exploded outside Prodi’s house on Dec. 21, causing a small fire.

Police suspect the same group in the four letter bombs found since Saturday, Persico said.

In a letter to the daily La Repubblica on Dec. 23, the group said it had planted the earlier bombs to “hit at the apparatus of control that is repressive and leading the democratic show that is the new European order.”