cordoned off neighborhood and deminers on site in Courtepin

Big morning for the Friborg police this Monday. While she was in full intervention after having cordoned off a district of Courtepin, it was on the side of Grolley that the alert was given: military vehicles had started to burn. In the afternoon, the police indicated that, according to their initial information, “these two cases are linked”.

It all starts in the middle of the night from Sunday to Monday. Around 3:30 a.m., a 28-year-old motorcyclist fled from a police checkpoint between Belfaux and Misery. It was in Courtepin that he was arrested after forcing a police roadblock. It was in his neighborhood, and after his arrest, that the morning was agitated. While searching his accommodation, “the police discovered several homemade incendiary devices,” the police said.

Two buildings were evacuated while deminers worked on the homes. “I had to go see a friend, the police arrested me. No one passes anymore,” a reader testified in the morning. Except that, mystery, at the same time and a few kilometers away, while the biker was still in detention, “several army vehicles were damaged by a fire in Grolley, at the army logistics center”. According to a reader, the intervention began around 9 a.m. and “an area has been cordoned off, all passing vehicles are searched”.

“It suddenly smelled burnt,” describes a reader present in the logistics center. “Incendiary devices were then discovered on several vehicles, but many of them did not explode,” he adds. According to him, these devices would have been quite poorly designed, “otherwise the entire fleet would have been in flames”. It is not yet known how the detonations were triggered.

Police are refusing to comment further at this stage. “The population is not in danger,” she assured. On the army side, we only confirm that vehicles were damaged. Mine clearance experts were still on site in Grolley mid-afternoon Monday.