Terror Alert In Train Track Scare
An ‘Arab-looking’ man has been arrested after he left a pineapple stuffed with nails and pins in a black cloth by the side of a railway as a spell to win his ex-girlfriend back but it ended up sparking a terror alert.
The incident took place in Alicante, in the eastern Spanish region of Valencia on the Costa del Sol when a local resident reportedly said she saw two men who looked of Arab descent seemingly praying by the side of the train tracks and leaving a black package by it.
The authorities quickly found the black object and activated terror protocol, which a police spokesman told Central European News (CEN) involved “closing train traffic for not only local trains but also long-distance trains”.
A team from the Technician Specialist in Deactivation of Explosive Artefacts (TEDAX) unit of the National Police were sent to the scene and confirmed it was a false alarm. They found the suspicious object was actually a hollowed-out pineapple filled with nails, pins, coffee beans, grapes, two pieces of paper and black and red seeds.
Local media report 135 passengers were affected by the closing of train traffic for two hours and a police investigation ended with the arrest of a 38-year-old Spanish national.
During the investigation, the suspect reportedly explained to officers that the pineapple had been a “love spell” to try and recover a former partner as he had recently been dumped.
The suspect is said to have told cops he was into “esotericism” and had searched on the internet how to create love spell.
The black and red seeds came from the plant jequirity bean (Abrus pecatorius). The seeds are toxic and are banned in Spain as ingestion of a single seed can be fatal to humans.
The police spokesman told CEN that during the investigation into the pineapple incident the suspect’s ex-girlfriend “reported him for domestic violence and he went to trial where he was given a one-year restraining order and the ban of communicating with her”.
One of the two pieces of paper in the pineapple reportedly contained the name of the suspect’s former partner and the other contained skulls along with the name of his ex-partner’s mother and a man who is thought to be the woman’s new boyfriend.
The suspect was charged with public disorder and a police source told CEN “he was released and is waiting to face trial at Instructional Court Number 5”.