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Netherlands: Police chase journalist again

01 May 1996

On 16 April, 1996 a bomb exploded near a BASF plant in Arnhem, causing substantial damage to the building. Two weeks later the bombing was claimed by the Earth Liberation Front by means of a fax message sent to the activist magazine "Ravage" in Amsterdam. The apparent reason for the attack was a series of Bentazon emissions into the Rhine river in 1989, which at the time forced Dutch water supply companies to stop the intake of water. Shortly after the fax message, on May 3, the police "Bastion" team, formed to investigate two earlier bombings of a French bank and the French consulate on October 17, 1995 and January 2, 1996 respectively, raided the Ravage offices in search of the claim-letter. The Ravage editors had already destroyed it, but the detectives took the opportunity to confiscate a large amount of documents, the list of subscribers and six computers instead. Six days later, after presumably having copied most of this material, the goods were returned to the Ravage staff. The "Telegraaf" newspaper reported on May 6 that the Bastion team suspects Amsterdam squatters to be behind the bombings in Arnhem. Several squatted houses were said to be under surveillance.