November 9, 2011 | ChannelNewsAsia
FRANKFURT: A letter bomb sent to the head of Germany’s biggest bank, Deutsche Bank, was primed and could have exploded, state police said Thursday after the envelope was intercepted.
Italian far-left group Federazione Anarchica Informale (FAI) has claimed responsibility for the letter bomb sent to Deutsche Bank chief Josef Ackermann that was intercepted at the bank’s headquarters, German police said Thursday.
State police in Hesse, the region where the Deutsche Bank headquarters is located, said it was possible that the group had sent further bombs in addition to one discovered Wednesday addressed to the CEO of Germany’s top bank.
“In the intensive search for evidence, authorities from the Hesse state crime office found a hidden, rolled up letter written in Italian,” police said in a statement.
“In it, the ‘FAI – Federazione Anarchica Informale’ claimed responsibility for the attempted letter bomb attack against Dr. Ackermann. The authors spoke of ‘three explosions against banks, bankers, ticks and bloodsuckers’.
“Based on that one must assume that another two mail bombs may have been sent,” police said.
They called the FAI a “terrorist left-wing anarchist organisation” and said it had claimed responsibility for several attacks against European state institutions, primarily in Italy.
The Hesse state police said in the statement that the group had also attempted a letter bombing against the European Central Bank in Frankfurt in 2003.