'Collar bomb' alert grips Sydney
Bomb squad officers in Australian city work to defuse device attached to teenage girl in apparent extortion attempt
Lizzy Davies
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 3 August 2011 11.36 BST
Australian bomb squad officers are working to defuse a suspicious device found at a home in a wealthy suburb of Sydney, police have said. Surrounding streets have been closed to traffic and emergency services are at the scene.
New South Wales police said an 18-year-old woman called them to the house in Mosman, on Sydney's north shore, at about 2.30pm Australian time and that the bomb squad was in the process of examining the device.
Assistant Commissioner Mark Murdoch would not comment on reports that a "collar bomb" had been strapped to the woman by someone else. "There's a device in the house in the vicinity of the young woman. That device is still being examined as we speak," he told journalists. "We are treating the device as live until we know otherwise."
Asked by the Australian Daily Telegraph whether the girl could move away from the device, Murdoch was quoted as saying: "No, she can't get away from it."
"I can't confirm whether it is strapped to the woman involved but she is still in the vicinity of the device," he said.
The paper quoted an unnamed police officer as describing the device as a "collar bomb" and the incident as an extortion attempt. The Sydney Morning Herald claimed that a man wearing a balaclava had entered the house and placed the device on the woman. Neither of these reports could be independently confirmed.
The house is in an exclusive road full of multimillion-dollar properties. Homes near the house involved have been evacuated.
Police said defusing the device demanded "a high level of skill and must be meticulous".
'Collar bomb' alert grips Sydney | World news | guardian.co.uk
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Shit. I hope this doesn't go as badly as the last time this trick was employed.
'Collar bomb' alert grips Sydney
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