2010-01-05

Political Police in Eastern Europe

The title, of course, doesn't really say anything new, until one reads this (BBC News).
It seems like Slovakian police planted explosives in an innocent traveler's bags on purpose; he got arrested (but was later released) upon landing in Ireland.
...huh?
What puzzles me most is why the police would do something like that. There is a sentence somewhere in the article about the Slovakian police wanting to test airport security, but even this is not clear at all in the rest of the article.
Giving them the benefit of the doubt, I...guess it's a fine thing to test airport security by trying to bring in these explosives, but wouldn't it be better for those same policepeople to go in themselves undercover with the explosives?
Why unnecessarily hassle (in the most extreme sense of the word) an innocent passenger? They never signed up to be a guinea pig to security testing.
Color me suspicious. I figure ulterior motives are at work (e.g. the Slovakian government has some sort of grudge against this guy and wants to arrest him any way possible).