Four held over parcel bomb threat to Sarkozy

FOUR people were arrested in Athens yesterday for plotting to send parcel bombs to French President Nicolas Sarkozy and three foreign embassies in the Greek capital, police said.

Police said one of the four people arrested was a suspected member of an elusive far-left group that specialises in arson attacks on offices and homes of politicians, Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei.

One of the packages, addressed to Mexico’s embassy in Athens, detonated in the headquarters of a courier company, injuring a female employee’s hand.

It ignited when the staffer became suspicious of its contents and threw it to the ground, a police source said.

Two men, aged 22 and 24, were arrested in the central district of Pangrati. Police said in a statement they were intending to mail a total of four parcel bombs, and were both armed with Glock handguns. One wore a bullet-proof vest and a wig.

Two women were also held and were under questioning, a police source said.

“The incident seems rather ridiculous and, in Sarkozy’s case, it’s quite evident that this parcel would never have reached its destination,” police spokesman Thanassis Kokalakis said.

From a postal slip found on the suspects, the police tracked down and exploded a second parcel at a neighbouring courier company, addressed to the Dutch embassy.

Two more devices found on the detainees were intended for Sarkozy and the Belgian embassy, the police said.