March 12, 2013

(JTA) – A fake explosive device was found near a Jewish institution in the French city of Lyon.

Police were called to examine the object Tuesday morning after a store owner reported that, while walking past Lyon’s Hillel Center, he found a contraption made of three metal cylinders connected with metal wires to what looked like a cellular phone, according to a report on the incident by the SPCJ security unit of France’s Jewish communities.

Police evacuated all residents from nearby buildings before detonating the object, which according to the 20minutes.fr news website was fake. It quoted a city official as saying: “Whoever placed this did everything they could to make us believe this was a bomb.”

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