Finders Keepers: Man rides a tram with mortar shells in his lap
A treasure-hunter from Schaarbeek who took home two mortar shells soon found police and bomb disposal experts knocking at his door
Shell-shocked
The young man regularly goes to deserted places like forests to search for interesting stuff with his metal detector, takes pictures of them and posts them online. The internet forum he frequents lit up; others more expert in the matter of munitions warned him that the shells were British manufactured mortar bombs, which could still be unstable and liable to explode.
He couldn’t get through to the army bomb disposal unit Dovo right away, so what to do? He decided to take the two bombs down to the bottle bank on the corner and leave them there. Later he realised that might not be the best solution and called the local police.
There’s a happy ending: Dovo did in fact come and collect the shells, disposing of them safely.
The lucky treasure-hunter may still come to regret his collector’s frenzy, though. The police are thinking of sending him a bill for the uproar he caused. He’s already been given a summons – for possession of explosives.
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