THREE MEDAN HOTELS RECEIVE BOMB THREATS

Medan, N Sumatra, July 20 (ANTARA) - Since last Friday's hotel bombings in Jakarta, there were three bombing threats addressed to hotels in Medan, local police said.

The most recent bombing threat was received by the Grand Swiss-Bel Hotel on Jalan S Parman on Monday morning.

Medan City Police Chief Senior Commissioner Imam Margono said the Grand Swiss-Bel hotel's telephone exchange operator named Rio at 10.45 on Monday morning received a call from an unidentified man who said he had planted a bomb somewhere on the hotel's premises.

The threat was immediately reported to the police who then sent a detachment of officers, including a bomb squad and Margono himself, to the hotel.

A thorough search of the hotel premises, however, proved the bomb threat to be an empty one. Nonethless, Margono said, police would continue to respond to any bomb threat report received from the public.

Asked how often bomb threats had happened in Medan over the past few days, Margono said since last Friday (July 17), police had received three reports, including the one from the Grand Swiss-bel Hotel. "So far, there have been three bomb threats we know of," he said.