Swiss police try to trace robbers after consulate siege
Swiss police, surprised to find an empty building when they stormed the Spanish consulate to capture would-be robbers, have launched a search for the three suspects who forced their way into the mission and held three employees hostage before fleeing.
A manhunt was under way for the suspects, described as three young men speaking broken French, said police Maj Peter Theilkaes. They were believed to be armed with knives and a handgun.
Officers set up a security cordon around the consulate in the normally tranquil, upmarket Kirchenfeld neighbourhood of Bern.
The three masked attackers had forced their way into the consulate shortly before 8am yesterday (7am Irish time), taking three people hostage, Theilkaes said.
Police from Switzerland’s diplomatic protection corps were on a routine patrol when they found one of the hostages – a driver employed by the consulate - injured outside the building. He was taken to hospital with knife wounds to the head.
Two other hostages, both consulate employees, left the building mid-morning and were unhurt.
After surrounding the building, special forces stormed the consulate in the early afternoon, but found it empty. The suspected robbers apparently fled the building six hours earlier, authorities said.
Piecing together the sequence of events, Spanish officials said the assailants ordered the two consulate employees to open a safe, but neither employee knew the combination. They then ordered the two, a man and a woman, into a separate room, the Spanish foreign ministry said in Madrid.
The two consulate employees were able to leave the building under police protection at about 10.30am.
