Greek police arrest suspect behind parcel bomb attacks on EU officials

ATHENS: Greek authorities have arrested a man believed to have been involved in parcel bombs mailed to European Union officials and former Greek prime minister Lucas Papademos earlier this year, police said on Saturday.

In March, police intercepted eight suspect packages at an Athens postal sorting centre after the dispatch of booby-trapped parcels to the International Monetary Fund in Paris and the German Finance Ministry.

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One parcel, mailed to former German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble was intercepted by the German Finance Ministry’s mail department. But a letter addressed to the International Monetary Fund in Paris exploded, slightly hurting an administrative assistant.

“The anti-terrorism service arrested a 29-year-old male following a warrant … related to parcel bomb dispatches,” police said in a statement.

In May, former Greek prime minister Lucas Papademos was injured when a booby-trapped package exploded in his car in central Athens, in the worst act of violence targeting politicians in the crisis-hit country for several years.

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The suspect denies involvement in the attacks or in the militant group Conspiracy of Fire Cells, which claimed responsibility for the parcel sent to the German Finance Ministry, a police official told Reuters.

“Police had spotted him in videos bringing parcels to the post office on five different occasions and he was under surveillance for days,” the police official said, declining to be named. “His apartment is currently being searched.”