Nail bombs found at Exeter restaurant made from Middle Eastern brand of fizzy orange drink
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The nail bombs found at the Girraffe restaurant in Exeter were made out of a Middle Eastern brand of a fizzy orange drink, it emerged today.
The drink, known as Mirinda, is made by Pepsi in Syria, and not http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=4060 in the UK.
Plain-clothes detectives have scoured convenience stores near the suspect http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=3706’s home and near a second address raided by police on Sunday night – quizzing staff if they sold the drink.
It is believed two bottles were used to contain the home-made bombs.
Had the ‘viable’ devices detonated properly they could have unleashed a deadly fireball in the Giraffe restaurant in Exeter on Thursday.
A shopkeeper at a Kurdish grocers across the street from Reilly’s home in http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=1101 confirmed that he sold the drink at his shop.”We sell it for 50p,” said a member of the shop staff.
The shop worker confirmed that plain-clothed police had questioned shop staff if they sold the drink in a 355ml size – although they had recently sold out.
Detectives also quizzed another shopkeeper close to a house rented by a group of Iraqi Kurds raided by police.
Reilly, who suffered from Asperger’s Syndrome and was known as the Big Friendly Giant to locals on account of his amiable nature and 6ft3ins height, was ‘radicalised’ by terrorists according to police.
He suffered eye and facial injuries when one of the makeshift devices blew up in his face in the restaurant toilets.
Reilly, who is believed to have received skin grafts, was released from hospital last night, and police now plan to begin interviewing him.
Reilly’s step father, Phil Dinner, 46, says Reilly has now spoken to his mother Kim, 40, by phone from his hospital bed – and apologised for his actions.
Police are also continuing to hold two men of Middle Eastern appearance who were dramatically captured by armed police while they sipped coffees at an open-air cafe on Friday.
In a second raid connected to the nail-bombing investigation, police searched a second address in the Laira area of Plymouth – believed to be rented to a group of Iraqi Kurd asylum seekers.
Plain-clothed and uniformed police spent Sunday night and yesterday carrying out a finger-tip search.
The three-storey Victorian terraced home, on Old Laira Road in Plymouth, Devon, is just two miles from the flat where Reilly lived with his mother.
Police say no arrests were made or are expected but confirmed the raid was part of the investigation into the failed bomb attack last week.
Neighbour Steve Harvey, 63, said: “A married couple used to live in the house until about six years ago when they moved out and the council took it on.
“There have been different asylum seekers there over the years but since 2006 it has been let to a group of three or four Iraqi Kurds.
“They are all men and seemed okay. They kept themselves to themselves and I’d see them chatting if they had a barbecue out the back.