THE Fife home of a former lawyer was last night under police guard as it emerged he had also been the target of a parcel bomber who left a private investigator and his wife badly injured after an explosion at their Dundee home.

Mr Derek Lawson, now a probationer Church of Scotland minister in St Andrews, was alerted by police on Thursday night, hours after retired policeman Michael Coyne and his wife, Margaret, were seriously injured by a parcel bomb delivered to their home in Lammerton Terrace.

The churchman confirmed that he knew the injured private investigator through his legal work with the Dundee firm Lawson, Coull and Duncan.

Asked if he believed he had a lucky escape, he said: ''That is a fair assumption.'' He added: ''We have a policeman sitting outside our door.''

The net was closing last night on Syrus Ghiassy, the man police have accused of the bombing after Tayside detectives confirmed they had obtained a warrant for his arrest on a charge of attempted murder. The former St Andrews businessman was described as of Iranian extraction, but carries a British passport.

A car allegedly used by him to deliver three packages to the Norfolk depot of a courier company was also found yesterday at Heathrow airport.

A third parcel was bound for an address in Kent. The three parcels were placed with a TNT express delivery depot at Thetford, Norfolk, earlier this week.

Retired CID officer Mr Coyne, 64, and his wife Margaret, 60, were yesterday recovering in separate hospitals in Dundee after undergoing emergency surgery following the explosion at their home.

Mr Coyne is recovering in a surgical ward at Ninewells Hospital after treatment for a groin injury, while his wife is being treated by plastic surgeons at Dundee Royal

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infirmary. Their son was by their bedside, although the family have declined to comment. A spokesman for the hospitals described their conditions as stable.

At a press conference yesterday morning in Dundee, Detective Chief Superintendent Tom Ross said: ''There are links between the intended recipients of these packages and the man who had posted them. It may be connected with Mr Coyne's work, however we are not ruling anything out at this stage.''

Mr Ross added: ''Mr Coyne has been very helpful. He is still in shock and we have not obtained a full statement but my officers will question him further later. He has given us enough to act on.

''The bombs were extremely dangerous. The cases were designed to very seriously injure people, if not kill them.''

A description of the man who delivered the packages to the depot was issued by officers. He is described as aged around 55, about 5ft 6in, of slim build, with a pock-marked face with tight curly greying hair and a Middle Eastern appearance.

He was said to have worked as a physicist in Tayside.

Meanwhile, police in Norfolk appealed to garage owners for their help in tracing the bomber. Detectives hope that forecourt security cameras may have captured the man on film before or after he dropped the packages at the Thetford depot.

A special incident room has been set up at the local police station.

Norfolk Police spokesman Peter Steward said: ''Early investigations indicate that this was not a terrorist-linked incident or a random attack. We are satisfied that there is no immediate local connection and the branch at Thetford may have been chosen at random.''

He praised staff at the delivery depot for their prompt and careful action in handling the suspect packages. TNT spokesman David Hare said a full security review was planned in the wake of the bombing.

''Like other express parcel carriers, we operate an open system whereby customers are not requested to disclose the contents of parcels they ask us to carry.

''All our staff are highly-trained and regularly circulated with profiles of likely suspect parcels. It was due to this training and the alertness of our staff that the two further parcels were made safe and further injuries avoided.

''We are, of course, co-operating fully with police and are also reviewing our procedures, including those concerning safety and security. We will also be carrying out a special review to determine whether there are any further practical measures which can be taken to minimise the risk of similar incident in the future.''

Army bomb disposal experts from Colchester, who detonated the two undelivered packages found at the depot, said both had contained quantities of an unknown explosive.