Dortmund: Borussia Dortmund’s team bus was attacked with explosives here Tuesday evening shortly before the start of their Champions League clash with AS Monaco, injuring defender Marc Bartra. Organisers UEFA, was forced to postpone the game by a day.
German police said Tuesday they did not know who was behind the attack, in which three explosions went off at 7.15pm near the hotel where the team were staying, but said the team appeared to be the target.
Prosecutors said a letter had been found near the scene of the blast, but declined to give details of its contents and said it was not clear whether it was authentic.
“At this time, it is still not clear what the real background to this act is,” Dortmund police chief Gregor Lange told a late night news conference in the western German city.
Lange said police assumed the team bus was deliberately targeted in the attack as it left the team hotel on the way to the stadium. The devices were placed in a bush alongside the street, ‘Bild’ newspaper reported, without giving a source. A police spokesman had earlier said ‘the explosive devices were placed outside the bus’.
Dortmund police said earlier on Twitter: “After the initial investigation, we assume that this was an attack using serious explosives.”
“The risk of a terrorist attack is not new today,” Lange said. “We have been preparing for this for a long time. I do not want to suggest that this was a terrorist attack. All that is still being investigated. We want to be careful. It is being investigated very professionally.”
A spokesman for Borussia Dortmund said the injured player, Bartra, was being operated on for a broken bone in his right wrist and shrapnel in his arm. “The bus turned into the main street, when there was a huge boom, a real explosion,” Sky television quoted Dortmund goalkeeper Roman Buerki as saying.
“I was sitting in the back row next to Marc (Bartra), hit by fragments … after the bang, we all ducked.”
Bartra, 26, joined Dortmund for eight million euros ($8.5 million) last year from Barcelona, after coming through the Catalan club’s youth system. He has made 12 appearances for the Spanish national team.
Reuters
