Man arrested in Paris after Iran Consulate incident

Police cordon off the Iranian Consulate since a man, who is wearing an explosive belt, threatened to activate it in a building of the Iranian Consulate as French radio channel Europe 1 reported in Paris, France on April 19, 2024. [Mohamad Salaheldin Abdelg Alsayed – Anadolu Agency]

French police, on Friday, arrested a man who had threatened to blow himself up at Iran’s Consulate in Paris, Reuters reports.

A police source had told Reuters the man was seen at about 11 a.m. (0900 GMT) entering the Consulate, carrying what appeared to be a grenade and explosive vest. Police cordoned off the area.

The man later left the Consulate and, on being searched, was found not to be carrying any explosives, a police source said.

Le Parisien newspaper said on its website that, according to several witnesses, the man had dragged flags on the floor of the Consulate and said he wanted to avenge the death of his brother.

It was unclear whether the incident had any link to current tensions between Iran and Israel.

Earlier on Friday, explosions echoed over the Iranian city of Isfahan in what sources described as an Israeli attack, but Tehran played down the incident and indicated it had no plans for retaliation – a response that appeared gauged towards averting region-wide war.

READ: No damage in Iran after alleged Israel attack

Unless otherwise stated in the article above, this work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If the image(s) bear our credit, this license also applies to them. What does that mean? For other permissions, please contact us.