Former Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos is injured in car bombing in Athens
By Joseph Curtis For Mailonline 17:11 BST twenty five May 2017, updated 21:Legitimate BST twenty five May two thousand seventeen
- Former Greece prime minister Lucas Papademos injured in car bombing
- Greek police say an explosive device was hidden inwards a letter in the vehicle
- Authorities say both Mr Papademos and his driver have been taken to hospital
- Politician has ‘chest and gam wounds’ but his ‘life is not in danger’ say reports
A former Greek prime minister has been injured in a car bombing in Athens today.
Greek police say Lucas Papademos, Sixty-nine, was targeted in the attack in central Athens.
An explosive device was said to have been hidden in an envelope detonated inwards the car of former Greek central bank chief.
State TV ERT said Papademos had chest and gam wounds and trouble breathing, but his life was not in danger.
‘Mr Papademos and his driver are being rushed to hospital,’ a police official said, declining to be named.
Authorities also said doctors were worried about the politicians eyesight following the blast.
Mr Papademos has served as vice president of the European Central Bank.
It is believed two other people in the car were also injured.
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‘We are shocked. I wish to condemn this heinous act,’ media minister Nikos Pappas told the station.
Mr Papademos headed an interim coalition government at the height of Greece’s fiscal crisis that in two thousand twelve negotiated a massive write-down of the country’s privately-held debt.
There was no instant claim of responsibility for the blast.
Police said Mr Papademos’s police escort had been in a car behind the former prime minister’s vehicle, and that the other two wounded were Bank of Greece employees.
Authorities cordoned off the area, and forensics experts were investigating the scene for evidence.
The former prime minister’s car was parked by the side of the road, in front of its escort vehicle. Mr Papademos’s car bore little sign of harm, except for buckling on two doors.
Government spokesman Dimitris Tzanakopoulos called the blast an ‘attack’ and said he had been given an update from doctors treating the wounded.
He said all were ‘in a stable condition, are conscious, and are undergoing all the necessary medical tests so that their treatment can be determined’.
‘With all out heart, we wish Mr Papademos and his companions a speedy recovery. The prime minister has been updated about all the events by the minister of public order and he will proceed to receive updates,’ Mr Tzanakopoulos said.
In March, Greek anarchist group Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei mailed a letter bomb that injured a secretary at the International Monetary Fund in Paris.
The Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei had earlier claimed responsibility for an explosive device, also sent from Greece, that was discovered by the police at the offices of German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble.
The group, which is considered a terror organisation by Washington, sent letter bombs to foreign embassies in Greece and to European leaders in 2010.