TIME BOMB IN CHURCH

Press, Volume XCII, Issue 27851, 27 December 1955, Page 9

TIME BOMB IN CHURCH

Discovery In Paris Crypt Prp!ts Association—Cornjrujht) ‘Rec. 9 p.m.) PARIS, December 25. A rowerful to go a ? ncon ’ was found todav at th« foot of ♦he alter of a crvnt 2 aoel in the Sacre Coeu-, the famous Paris churchy known to migriirs and tourists from all over the wor’d.

Answering an anonymous telephone u-1 Police patrol cars ra-ed to the u-ii 2i ehurch on the top of Montmartre mH this morning. The” found the bomb ticking away beneath a white cloth on which had be®n laid a posv O f violets. It had been nicrovered, while the police were on tneir way, by the sacristan of the church.

Explosive experts removed the bomb and dismantled it. They said it would have exploded with the power of n 75 miPimetre artillery shell. The mystery man who telephoned the nolice said he had written to the Prefect of Police about the bomb. Lpter in the day a letter arrived in which the writer said he had tried m vain for five years to persuade the Pone to excommunicate all atomic scientists.

He proposed to draw attention to the danger of nuclear experiments by niacing bombs in the Sacre Coeur Church and also in Notre Dame Cathedral. Letter to Rector A second letter, addressed to Monsignor Touzet, Rector of the Sacre Coeur. was handed in at the sacristy this morning by a young man who did not wait for an answer. It said: “This year, on the Sunday after Easter. I received the order from God the Father, in Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, to invite the Pope to travel to Paris this Christmas Day at noon to pronounce that excommunication. and if his Holiness did not keep the appointment, to blow up Notre Dame and the altar and chapel cf Sa»nt Peter at Montmartre. “I kept the appointment. A bomb had. been placed before the altar of Saini Peter in the chapel.” The writer, who signed himself “Daniel. Born at Saint Maur (a suburb of Paris)., Count of Paris.’’ said he then- went to Notre Dgme with a second bomb, but “God advised me to go home and set about the matter in another way.”

A third letter was also handed in at the Sacre Coeur sacristy this morning. It was addressed to Mr Edouard Herriot, former President of the French National Assembly, and signed, “On behalf of Father Christmas, by the hand of his son. Daniel.”

From the letters it appeared that the bomb was intended to go off at midnight But since the explosion depended on a cheap alarm clock, the police said it would have gone off at noon instead. The bomb consisted of a metal box about seven inches high and three inches wide, containing a celluloid cylinder filled with black powder. The time mechanism consisted of the alarm clock and two torch batteries.