A married couple in northern Italy were arrested this week for using a Second World War bomb as a garden ornament. The 40-year-old businessman and his wife transformed the 90-kilo, TNT-packed RAF bomb into a fountain to decorate the grounds of their new home, local daily Il Resto del Carlino reported on Thursday.
The daily said the businessman, who runs a construction firm, found the bomb eight years ago during digging at a work site near Arezzo. He subsequently contacted the police who apparently failed to follow up on the find.
Convinced the bomb was harmless, the businessman hauled it off to a warehouse where it remained for six years.
Then two years ago, he decided to install the bomb in the garden of the villa he was renovating in Pennabilli near Pesaro.
The daily recounted that last Sunday, the businessman found himself chatting to a policeman in a bar and asked him if he needed authorisation to keep the bomb. The next day, a squad of military policemen arrived at his house and arrested both him and his wife. The couple spent the night in jail before being released on bail. In the meantime, the bomb was taken away to be dealt with by disposal experts.
A lawyer for the couple told Il Resto del Carlino that "it was obviously all a mistake - my clients weren't aware that the bomb was dangerous. They were convinced it was an empty shell".
