Terrorist organization claims responsibility for Rimi bombing

  • 2001-06-07
  • Jorgen Johansson
RIGA - An unknown terrorist group calling itself the Latvian National Liberation Movement has claimed responsibility for two separate bombings in Latvia last year.

The first blast occurred on Aug. 17 when two bombs went off within minutes of each other at the Rimi Centrs shopping mall in Riga's Old Town. Several people were taken to hospital, three of whom were sent to Norway and Sweden for special treatment. One woman, who worked at the baggage check-in, died from her injuries in the burns ward of Karolinska Hospital in Stockholm, Sweden.

The second took place close to Mangali train station in the outskirts of Riga. Numerous train tracks were damaged by the explosion, but no one was injured.

The Latvian National Liberation Movement emailed a statement to various media providers in Riga on May 30. Although a server in Australia was used to make the statement look more authentic, Latvian security police managed to trace the origin of the message to a local Internet café in Riga.

Security police chief Janis Reiniks told the Baltic News Service that police were still investigating the group's claims.

According to the group's Internet home page, which has now been shut down by Emu Cities, Australia's free Web space provider, the organization has said it is fighting to free Latvia from exploititive companies helped by the government.

He said police had technology it could use in these cases and experience from a previous case when a terrorist used the Internet to send messages to the Norwegian retail conglomerate Linstow Warner in Riga, threatening to blow up its shops unless the company gave him some money.

However, the Latvian National Liberation Movement is not being taken too seriously by police.

Uldis Dzenitis, deputy director of the Constitution Protection Office, Latvia's top intelligence agency, expressed skepticism over the latest information concerning the Rimi blasts, saying: "I personally don't believe this organization exists. I think this is just some individual.

"We don't have any information about this organization."

Rimi-Latvia Director Knut Kvisvik, who was rushed to a hospital in Norway for treatment as a result of the blasts, said he had not heard anything about this organization.

"Any other information on the bombing should be provided by the police," the Rimi director told The Baltic Times.

Police said they will continue to investigate the case.

"We are not taking this so seriously, but, of course, we have to check out everything that has to do with terrorism," Dzenitis said.