The discovery here of an arms cache Danish police said was sufficient to start a small war has resulted in the arrests of 10 people suspected of staging robberies in support of a Syrian-based Palestinian terrorist organization.
The suspects are all Danish nationals, one of them born in Jordan. They were remanded in custody for 21 days, during which time the police hope to gather enough evidence to support a charge sheet.
A number of suspects have been under investigation for some time. Six arrests were made April 14, when five men and a woman were charged with a series of robberies in and around Copenhagen between 1980 and 1983.
They were also accused of kidnaping a bank director in 1980 and holding him for ransom.
The proceeds of those and other robberies since 1983 amounted to about 70 million Danish kroner, the equivalent of $10 million.
According to the police, the money was sent by Syrian diplomatic mail to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a hard-line faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization headed by George Habash.
Diplomatic mail can be dispatched from a special desk at Copenhagen airport, free of customs inspection or control.
Discovery of the weapons stock resulted from a road accident. Police searching a wrecked car found a quantity of money and the address of an apartment in a Copenhagen suburb.
Searching the premises, they found weapons, ammunition, forged passports and drivers licenses, and a police uniform.
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