Police arrest man, but say London airport incident not 'terrorist-related'

LONDON (Reuters) - British police said on Monday that they had arrested a 25-year-old man in connection with an incident that led to the evacuation of hundreds of passengers from London City Airport on Friday, but that the matter was not "terrorist-related". "The man ... was arrested on suspicion of using a noxious substance to cause serious damage, an offence under section 113 of the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001," London's Metropolitan Police said on Monday. A later statement said the incident was "not being treated as a terrorist-related matter" and would be investigated by an aviation policing department. Police said the arrest took place at a residential address in east London on Saturday, and that the man was held at a west London police station and then released on bail pending further enquiries. London City airport was briefly closed on Friday as police and firefighters in protective equipment swept the terminal building of the airport with chemical detectors after several people were taken ill, some of them coughing violently. Police later said the incident may have been caused by CS gas, used for self-defense and crowd control. (Reporting by David Milliken and William James; editing by Costas Pitas and Richard Balmforth)