Jobless man rams car into party HQ

An unemployed Spaniard who said he was a ruined businessman rammed a car containing gas cylinders into the headquarters of Spain’s ruling People’s Party in Madrid, triggering a police alert, official spokesmen said. No one was injured.

Police cordoned off the central Madrid street where the building stands and shut down nearby metro stations. Bomb disposal experts examined the car as a precaution, a police spokeswoman said.

The car crashed into the glass front of the building at high speed, entered the lobby and nearly hit a cleaner, former Madrid mayor Esperanza Aguirre told a radio station. Police arrested the 37-year-old man from the eastern province of Teruel.

“He said he was a businessman who sought revenge for current political policy,” a government spokesman said.

The car carried two cylinders of butane gas, the government spokesman said. It also contained two bags of industrial fertiliser, El Pais reported.

Spain has the second-highest unemployment rate in Europe after Greece and nearly half of the 5.4 million jobless have been out of work for more than two years, meaning they can no longer claim benefits.