Greek Police Foil Bombing at Citibank Athens Branch

By Maria Petrakis

Feb. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Greek police said they thwarted a car bomb attack at a branch of Citigroup Inc.’s Citibank in a northern Athens suburb.

The makeshift explosive device, comprising five household propane gas canisters filled with fertilizer-based explosives and attached to detonators and mechanical clocks, was destroyed in a controlled explosion, the police department said in a statement on its Web site. The bomb was found in a stolen car parked opposite the Citibank branch in Kifissia.

There was no warning call and no claim of responsibility, a police spokesman said in a phone interview. Police were alerted by a guard who noticed the car being parked by three masked people outside the bank at around 4:30 a.m., according to the statement. The guard called police when the occupants of the car didn’t return.

Shootings and small-scale bombings have increased since protests that followed the Dec. 6 shooting of a teenager by police in Athens. Earlier this month, a previously unknown group, the Revolutionary Sect, took responsibility for a shooting at a suburban police station in Athens and threatened more attacks. Another group, Revolutionary Struggle, last month claimed responsibility for two attacks on police officers.

In a separate statement, police said 12 shells recovered from two weapons used in a gun attack at the Alter television station in western Athens late yesterday were from the same gun used in the attack this month on the Korydallos police station and later claimed by Revolutionary Sect.

Gunmen fired shots and threw a homemade explosive device at the premises, police said in a statement. No one was hurt in the attack. The bomb didn’t explode, while the shots damaged three vehicles belonging to the television station’s staff members, state-run Athens News Agency reported.