POLICE believe dissident republicans planned to detonate a bomb hidden inside a fire extinguisher during a PSNI recruitment event at a Derry hotel.
Details of the deadly plot emerge when two men from Co Meath faced Derry Magistrates’ Court charged over the plot which was aimed at the Waterfoot Hotel.
One of them was due to book into the hotel two months ago, recover the bomb from the hotel grounds, plant it in the hotel and leave.
Detectives believe the device would then have detonated on Saturday, October 10 as people milled around at the PSNI open day.
Darren Poleon, 41, from Kells and Brian Walsh, 34, from Dunshaughlin, were refused bail and remanded in custody to Maghaberry Prison.
They are jointly charged that on Tuesday, October 6 they prepared an act of terrorism by placing an improvised explosive device.
The dissident suspects are also charged on the same date with possessing an improvised explosive device with intent to endanger life or cause damage to property and with conspiring to cause an explosion with an improvised explosive device.
A detective constable in the PSNI’s Terrorist Investigation Unit told the court that a sat nav recovered from Poleon’s Ford Focus car showed it had had been driven to Derry from Meath on October 6.
He said police recovered CCTV footage of the car being parked right behind the Waterfoot Hotel just off the Foyle Bridge dual carriageway.
The car was then driven to Eglinton before it returned to the hotel where police believe one person was collected and another dropped off.
The detective said the car containing the two defendants was stopped in Omagh the following day by police and officers found two pairs of latex gloves, a toy gun, bolt cutters, and a walkie-talkie.
Following arrest, they were released on bail on suspicion of going equipped to commit a burglary.
The detective constable said that on Friday, October 9 police found an improvised explosive device beside the hotel containing 1.5 kilos of low explosives.
He said the fire extinguisher and had been concealed in undergrowth bordering the hotel car park.
The detective said Poleon had made a booking to stay in the Waterfoot Hotel overnight on October 9.
He booked his reservation with a credit card, but he gave a false address and false phone number.
The officer said Poleon failed to arrive at the hotel that day.
But he said police believe Poleon planned to go there, remove the IED from the undergrowth, and place it in the hotel where it was timed to explode during the PSNI recruitment event.
Both men were remanded in custody until Decembe 31.
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