STOCKHOLM, Sweden — Swedish police arrested two maintenance workers on suspicion of plotting sabotage after they tried to enter a nuclear power plant Wednesday with traces of a powerful explosive like that used in the 2005 London transit bombings, officials said.
The plant’s operator, OKG, said no bomb was found and the incident did not pose a threat to the Oskarshamn generating station, which provides 10 percent of Sweden’s electricity.
Experts said a bagful of the suspected explosive would not be powerful enough to damage a nuclear reactor but could wreak havoc in a power plant’s control room.
Police with bomb-sniffing dogs searched the plant 150 miles south of Stockholm and were examining a substance detected on a plastic bag carried by one of the workers. It was believed to be triacetone triperoxide, or TATP, which is extremely dangerous even in tiny amounts.
“It’s not something you use at home,” said Anders Osterberg, a spokesman for plant operator OKG. “We’re not dealing with toys here.”
The two men were contractors hired to do maintenance work on one of the facility’s three reactors, which was shut down May 11 for an annual check, plant spokesman Roger Bergman said.
Police did not release the men’s identities but said both were Swedish citizens.
The men were taken for questioning after a security check indicated traces of TATP on the handle of a plastic bag holding toiletries that one was carrying when they arrived for work early Wednesday, police said. Bergman said the second man was detained because “there is some uncertainty about who owns the bag.”
After questioning, both men were formally arrested on suspicion of preparing sabotage, a crime punishable by up to two years in prison, the Justice Ministry said.
