MONTREAL -- A bomb explosion ripped through the city's main train station packed with Labor Day holiday travelers Monday, killing at least three people and injuring 29 others. Police said the blast may have been a warning against a visit next week by Pope John Paul II.
Montreal police took one man into custody but released him after almost 10 hours of questioning. Homicide squad chief Lieutenant Jean-Louis Helie said the suspect, who was not identified, had been arrested because his description fit one that police had received of a suspicious person.
'But he's in the clear,' Helie said. 'We have no leads.'
Police said the 10:23 a.m. EDT blast originated in a bank of baggage lockers that blew 120 feet across Montreal's Central Station crowded with 250 Labor Day travelers, scattering burning luggage and debris and shattering windows of a hotel built over the terminal.
The blast came on the eve of national elections and followed the discovery last Friday of a note that apparently was intended as a threat against the pope, who is scheduled to arrive in Montreal next Monday.
The rambling, barely coherent hand-printed letter was found by a ticket agent in the station and turned over to police. It said in part:
'Nine-thirty a.m. September 3, 1984. End of the unholy Vatican. Kill popes! Fry bloody papacy! First 18 popes died violently. Pope Leo issued the tomos. First to die peacefully in his bed.'
A Toronto librarian suggested the reference to 'tomos' might have been a corruption or misspelling of 'tomes.' In the Fifth Century, Pope Leo I issued the 'Tome of Leo' in which he advocated the theory of Christ's two natures -- one that he was the son of man and the other that he was the son of God.
Police said they considered the letter evidence in the case. Police spokesman Pierre Vezina said 'the letter revealed a lot of targets and we investigated right away.' He would not disclose the other alleged targets.
John Paul is scheduled to arrive Sunday in Quebec City to begin an 11-day visit to Canada. He is scheduled to arrive by train next Monday at Montreal's Windsor Station, about a block from Central Station.
The pope is to stay at the Roman Catholic archdiocese located in the block between the two stations.
Helie said a second letter was found after the blast in the Queen Elizabeth Hotel built atop the station. He said it was uncertain whether the letter was written by the same person.
But a reporter for Montreal radio station CJAD said the letter was written in the same block printing and was titled: 'A parable of Job.'
He said it praised the three victims for dying 'a valiant death.'
'People were screaming and yelling and running, and police ordered everyone to get out -- and we got out,' said Harry Smith, a Winnipeg-bound visitor from New Zealand, who was standing about 90 feet from the explosion.
'I heard the explosion and it was terrific. I saw balls of fire and suddenly I saw a cloud around the surroundings where the the bomb exploded,' said another witness, Marcel Brais.
Spokesmen for Montreal police and the Urgence Sante ambulance service said three people were pronounced dead at the scene and taken to the morgue.
Ambulance service supervisor Anthony Di Monte said 29 injured victims were taken to six hospitals. Most of the victims suffered burns, cuts and shock and one was unconscious, he said. Two of the injured were reported in serious condition.
The station, crowded with Labor Day travelers, was evacuated about an hour after the explosion, but police said an anonymous caller told police at 11:40 a.m. that a second bomb had been planted.
After more than nine hours of searching, police abandoned the search for a second bomb at about 8 p.m. EDT.
District Police Director Claude St. Laurent said that until last Friday's letter, few threats or warnings against the pope's visit had been received.
'We've had some, but they were very minor and mostly from slightly disturbed people,' St. Laurent said. 'There was nothing serious.'
Abbe Andre Lamoureux, spokesman for Archbishop Paul Gregoire, said, 'There has been no tradition of any anti-pope movement in Quebec or Canada. Everyone has always been for the pope.'
Montreal police spokesman Real Cantin said the bomb was planted in a locker close to a men's room, near an escalator leading down to the train platform. Some 125 Ottawa-bound travelers were nearby, lining up to take an escalator down to the train platform.
'We were just up off the platform from the train going to Toronto and all we heard was this massive explosion and all we could see was just black smoke (that) filled the station and people were panicking,' said Via Rail employee Gary Johnston.
'There was just debris flying all over and burning pieces of luggage. It blew up the lockers so it was filled with luggage and burning things all over the place,' Johnston said.
