At least one person was killed and five others were injured in a
parcel bomb explosion in a central Paris building Thursday, the
Interior Ministry said.
French police close off
a road near the site of a parcel bomb in Paris, Dec. 6,
2007.
The explosion took place at a lawyer's office in a building on
Boulevard des Malesherbes in the west of the capital Paris, said a
ministry statement.
The parcel bomb was mailed to a law firm run by the
60-year-oldattorney Catherine Gouet-Jenselme, police said, adding
that a legal secretary was killed immediately after opening the
parcel. Five others were injured, including one seriously.
Several other people were suffering from shock, the ministry
said.
President Nicolas Sarkozy once practiced as a lawyer on the
first floor of the building, but the parcel exploded on the fourth
floor, the public prosecutor's office said.
The building also houses a foundation that does research on the
Holocaust.
A second suspected package was being defused in the same
building, officials said.
French military secure
the street near the building where one person was killed and
another seriously injured after a parcel bomb exploded in Paris,
Dec. 6, 2007.
Police vans and several fire trucks lined the streets near the
building and a large area around the lawyers' offices was cordoned
off.
Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie condemned the explosion
as a "cowardly and hateful act." Alliot-Marie was rushing back to
Paris from Brussels, where she was to have taken part in a European
Union meeting.
French police have launched investigations. Nobody has claimed
responsibility for the explosion so far, according to local
reports.
French police close off
a road near the site of a parcel bomb in Paris, Dec. 6,
2007.
(Xinhua News Agency December 7, 2007)
