Swedish Government Buildings in Bomb Scare
Two suspicious packages delivered to Swedish government buildings triggered bomb scares Thursday, police said, amid reports one may have been a gift from Uruguay's visiting president.
Police were alerted to a suspicious letter or package at the Rosenbad building, which houses Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt's offices, late Thursday morning and decided to evacuate parts of the building and cordon off the surrounding block, Stockholm police spokesman Ulf Lindgren told AFP.
Later police learned that a similar parcel had been delivered to the nearby foreign ministry, and were preparing to block off the area around that building as well.
Lindgren said no threats had been received and at least the Rosenbad parcel had been hand delivered and the sender was known, which indicated there was little chance the contents were actually dangerous.
"But all such items need to be treated as dangerous until the opposite has been proven," he stressed.
He could not say where the packages came from or if they were from the same sender, but a report from daily Expressen's online edition hinted at an interesting twist: at least one could be a gift from Uruguay's visiting president, Jose Mujica.
When he visited trade minister Ewa Bjoerling at the foreign ministry on Wednesday, Mujica handed over presents that, in a breach of security protocol, were not scanned until Thursday, Expressen reported, citing unnamed sources.
One of the gifts appeared to contain electronics, which set off the bomb scare, the paper reported.
Lindgren meanwhile said the bomb squad had been called in and that the suspect package at Rosenbad had been taken away in a special cart and police were gradually opening the area around the building.
Source: Agence France Presse
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