Dutch authorities said on Wednesday they had freed two Yemeni men held on suspicion of terrorism at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport after finding no evidence of wrongdoing despite a transatlantic security scare.
The men were detained on Monday after US authorities told the Dutch they had suspicious items in their luggage.
“The investigations in the US and the Netherlands yielded no evidence of any involvement of the men with any unlawful act,” a statement said on the Web site of the Dutch prosecution service, which said the men had been freed without charge. “After more intensive tests in the US, no traces of any explosives have been found.”
The men had unusual items in their luggage, including a mobile phone taped to a plastic bottle and US$7,000 in cash.
Initially, officials said they suspected the men might have been carrying out a “dry run” of an attack to see what they could bring onto a plane. However, late on Tuesday, US officials said the men did not know each other, were not conducting any tests and were unlikely to be charged.
An alleged attempt to blow up an aircraft on an Amsterdam-Detroit flight last December led to a sharp tightening of security at Schiphol, Europe’s fifth-largest passenger airport.
The Yemenis arrived in Amsterdam from Chicago O’Hare on United flight 908 early on Monday and were detained on the plane after the US Department of Homeland Security alerted Dutch authorities to suspicious items found in their luggage.
These included mobile phones taped together, and one phone taped to a plastic bottle. The phones were seized in the US.
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