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Police ‘lied’ about booby trap in squat

5 November 2007 - The ‘booby trap’ police claimed to have encountered last week while evicting a squat at the Kerkstraat was completely harmless, former residents claim. They say the police story was a spin to get Parliament to prohibit squatting.

According to the police, squatters had prepared the house in such a way that upon entering, an electrical winch would be set in motion, which would pull away beams that supported the roof.

Squatters immediately said the story was a spin intended to discredit them and to lend support to a CDA proposal to prohibit squatting. Now they have published photos at the Indymedia website to support their interpretation.

According to the report at Indymedia, the so-called booby trap consisted of nothing more than a fire extinguisher that would at most blow powder at the police. The ‘winch’ was in fact an electric motor from a toy train, ‘just powerful enough to pull away a carton of milk’.

A few months ago, police have claimed a petrol-filled jerry can encountered in an evicted squat at the Bilderdijkstraat was a booby trap. Two years ago, police sent a heavily-armed arrest team to a squat at the Prins Hendrikkade after mistaking an electric drill for a fire-arm.

Squatters compare the stories to the claims about ‘weapons of mass destruction’ in Iraq.

Indymedia: photos, background (in Dutch)

 

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