Paris IMF office blast leaves one person injured after letter ‘exploded when it was opened’
Anti-terror police and bomb disposal experts rushed to the scene
ONE person has been injured in a suspected letter bomb attack at the International Monetary Fund's Paris office.
Anti-terror police and bomb disposal experts rushed to the scene after an envelope sent to the building exploded and slightly injured one person.
A primitive device constructed around a firecracker is believed to have caused the explosion.
Referring to today’s incident, an emergency services source in Paris said: "Officers are attending the incident at the IMF building in Avenue Iena. There is not thought to be any structural damage to the building."
A source said the device "exploded in the face of a member of the IMF’s clerical staff".
Michel Cadot, the head of Paris police, said “three people were present” when the explosion happened “just before midday”.
He said the device “was not a bomb”, but a “big firecracker” that had been turned into a homemade booby trap.
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Cadot said staff at the IMF in Paris had received “menacing phone calls” over the past few days, but these were nothing out of the ordinary.
As more police and fire crews arrived, a wider evacuation was ordered, as some 150 members of staff began to leave the building, which is close to the Arc de Triomphe.
The parcel containing the device was addressed to the Chief of the European Bureau of the IMF, but was opened by a secretarial assistant, Cadot said.
He said that the assistant was “being treated for injuries to the face and hand” but they were not life threatening.
Today's attack comes after Greek radicals this week claimed responsibility for a parcel bomb that was sent to Germany's financial minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble.
The padded envelope had Italian postage stamps, but police were able to diffuse it.
The IMF is currently headed Christine Lagarde, a former finance minister in France, who is based in the USA.
France remains under a state of emergency, following a series of Islamist terrorist attacks across the country.
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