ROME: A package bomb was found at the Greek Embassy in Rome Monday, four days after similar mail bombs exploded at two other embassies injuring two people. The device was defused and no one was injured. Carabinieri Col. Maurizio Mezzavilla said the bomb was similar to the ones that exploded Thursday at the Chilean and Swiss embassies. An anarchist group with reported ties to Greek anarchists claimed responsibility for those blasts. “Having been done in the same way, we can just hypothesize that there is the same hand behind it,” Greek Ambassador Michalis Kambanis said at the embassy, although he added that he knew of no specific claim of responsibility. Greek Foreign Ministry spokesman Gregoris Delavekouras said from Athens that no one was harmed in the latest incident, in part because heightened security measures had already been put in place. “The embassy was evacuated and the staff assembled some distance away from the building, so that everyone could be accounted for,” he told. “There were already heightened security measures at the Greek and other embassies, so the procedure that had to be followed was clear.” Police, carabinieri and firefighters massed around the building Monday while the Greek Embassy staff lingered outside. The street, in the residential Parioli neighborhood, remained open to traffic. Ambassador Kambanis said the package, hand addressed to the embassy, was discovered at about 10:30 A.M. “We immediately informed the carabinieri who arrived here within three minutes,” he said. “We (notified) the appropriate services and the bomb was neutralized.” There have been several other reports of suspicious packages in recent days that turned out to be false alarms. On Monday, police responded to suspicious packages at the embassies of Venezuela, Monaco and Denmark; all were false alarms. Meanwhile, a suspect package has been found at Finland's embassy to the Vatican Monday.
