Swiss embassy bomb may be retaliatory act

A parcel bomb that exploded at the Swiss embassy in Rome could be tied to Switzerland's detention of members of an anarchist group.

Swiss Ambassador to Italy Bernardino Regazzoni, citing the Italian police, told a Zurich radio station that the attack could be in retaliation for the imprisonment of Swiss “eco-terrorist” Marco Camenisch over the murder of a customs officer in Graubünden in 1989.

A Swiss court sentenced Camenisch to 17 years in jail in 2004, which was later reduced to eight.

Two people were injured in the blasts at the Swiss and Chilean embassies in Rome on Thursday. An Italian group calling itself the Informal Anarchist Federation claimed responsibility for the attacks.

Italian Interior Minister Alfredo Mantovano told Il Giornale newspaper that the “targets were not chosen by chance”. He too suggested that Switzerland was targeted because it had imprisoned anarchists. He explained the attack on the Chileans by the death of an activist in Santiago in 2009.

The injured Swiss and Chilean embassy staff had undergone operations on Thursday. Police said the 53-year-old Swiss embassy employee was in a stable condition and was expected to be able to regain the use of his left hand.  He was visited in hospital by the Swiss ambassador.

Rome remained in a state of alert after the bombings. Government buildings and post offices were under high surveillance and a series of false alarms have been raised at three other embassies and official buildings.