Dutch police investigating a terror threat that prompted the cancellation of a concert by an American rock band in Rotterdam arrested a 22-year-old man in the early hours of Thursday, but said a man detained the previous day, who had gas canisters in his van, was not linked to the threat.
Police spokesman Roland Ekkers told The Associated Press that the man detained on Thursday was arrested in the province of Brabant, south of Rotterdam.
“He is in custody and will be questioned about the threat in Rotterdam,” police said in a statement, adding that they conducted a thorough search of his home. Dutch police do not generally release identities or other details of suspects in criminal investigations.
Meanwhile, police said the driver of a Spain-registered white van carrying a number of gas canisters that was stopped Wednesday night close to the Maassilo concert venue – where the band Allah-Las had been due to perform – was unlikely to be a suspect in the threat probe.
Speaking to CBS News, an officer in the Rotterdam police press office said the man “was drunk.” He was stopped for erratic driving – not due to any information provided beforehand by police in Spain or the Netherlands.
“We tried to ask him questions but he was too drunk to answer,” the officer said, adding that the gas canisters in his van were “related to his job.”
Explosives experts checked his van and found nothing suspicious beyond the gas canisters, according to the police.
A search of the man’s home “uncovered no link with the terror threat … at the Maassilo,” police said.
The performance by the Los Angeles band in Rotterdam was called off Wednesday night after Spanish authorities tipped Dutch police about a possible threat to the concert.
The van driver was detained for questioning two hours after the cancellation.
A Spanish counterterrorism official said Spain’s Civil Guard received “an alert indicating the possibility of an attack in a concert that was going to take place in Rotterdam.”