Berlin - Embarrassed German authorities have launched an investigation into how two confirmed cases of anthrax turned out to be false alarms, Derek Scally reports.
The first alarm was raised on Friday afternoon when Mr Frank-Michael Pietzsch, a minister in the central state of Thuringia, went before the press to announce that a suspicious letter had tested positive for anthrax.
The letter, received at a state employment office a week before, raised suspicions because it carried a German stamp and postmark but bore the sender name "Ahmed", from Islamabad. But when the letter was flown to a specialist facility in Berlin after the press conference, further tests turned up no traces of the deadly bacteria.
"We will scrupulously examine the entire sequence of events," said Mr Pietzsch yesterday.
The second false alarm came in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein, where authorities said anthrax had been detected in at least two of some 30 packages containing a white powder that were found on the streets of the city of Neumⁿnster. Police sealed off streets for hours and Deutsche Post closed two sorting offices. Once again later tests in Berlin turned out negative.
Yesterday police said an unemployed social worker had come forward and admitted distributing 30 white packages containing plaster powder around the city centre as an "artistic expression" of his 30th birthday. He could now face a stiff fine or up to three years in prison.
News of the false alarm came too late for most of Germany's national newspapers, who told their readers on Saturday to prepare for the worst.
"The horror is here," shouted the front-page headline in Bild. Television stations interrupted regular programming for anthrax "specials", repeatedly showing viewers computer simulations of how anthrax kills its victims.
German health officials now fear Friday's cases have opened the way for a wave of copycat hoaxes.