German police found a suspicious package in the mail at chancellor Angela Merkel's office in Berlin on Tuesday, a government spokesperson said. Merkel was not in the building at the time.
"During a routine control of incoming post, one package showed suspicious features that indicated there was a possibility it might contain explosives," spokesperson Steffen Seibert said in a statement, adding no one had been injured.
Federal police said the object was being investigated. "It is being checked for explosives right now," said a spokesperson.
A German newspaper, the Berliner Morgenpost, said the package's return address was the "Greece Economy Ministry" and it was addressed directly to Merkel. It quoted a security expert as saying the package could have exploded.
The security scare came the same day that bombs exploded at two foreign embassies in Greece, with suspect packages found at other diplomatic missions in Athens. Greek police linked the attacks there to leftist guerrillas.
On Monday, a bomb exploded in an Athens courier office wounding one employee, and Greek police arrested two men with two bombs, including one addressed to French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
A Reuters photographer saw police closing all the access gates which are usually left open for visitors at the central Berlin office of Merkel, who was out of the country at the time on a visit to Belgium.
German daily Der Tagesspiegel said the suspicious package contained gunpowder. It was delivered by United Parcel Service, it added. No independent corroboration of this was immediately possible.
