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Explosive package found at German Finance Ministry

March 15, 2017

German police have said a package containing explosives was delivered to Germany's Finance Ministry. Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office has seized and destroyed the package. No injuries have been reported.

https://p.dw.com/p/2ZFGG
Bundesfinanzministerium in Berlin
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/K.-D. Gabbert

An employee at the German Finance Ministry's postal delivery room discovered the package containing explosives on Wednesday morning.

Explosive experts from Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) were immediately called to seize the package. It was then taken to a detonation site in Grunewald, located just to the southwest of Berlin, where it was destroyed in a controlled explosion.

The BKA confirmed that it had been filled with a mixture of low-grade explosives, similar to those found in firecrackers. Police also reported that the mixture is often used in pyrotechnics and could have caused serious injuries, had the package been opened.

Officials declined to confirm that the package was addressed to German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, as reported in German media. 

A police source told the AFP news agency that the package was sent from Greece. Greece's Interior Ministry said authorities in Athens and Berlin were cooperating to determine how the package of explosive material was able to leave Greece.

dm/rc (dpa, AP)