Parcel bomb explosion kills 1, seriously injures another in Paris

Bomb sent to lawyer's office set up by Sarkozy and an associate; office in same building as Holocaust memorial.

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
A parcel bomb exploded at a lawyer's office in central Paris on Thursday, killing one person and seriously injuring another, officials said. The Interior Ministry said several other people were suffering from shock. "Someone came to the office and left a package. The secretary who opened it in fact opened a parcel bomb. The parcel bomb killed her," said Christian Charriere-Bournazel, the incoming president of the Paris bar. He said the injured person was a lawyer and that the woman who was killed was his secretary. In the same building as the lawyer's office that was targeted is a foundation that does research on the Holocaust and a law firm with which Nicolas Sarkozy, now the French president, used to work. Sarkozy trained as a lawyer. Officials stressed, however, that the motive for the attack was unclear. Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe said the bombed lawyer's office was on the same floor - the 4th - as the Foundation for the Memory of the Shoah, created in 2000 with an endowment from recovered funds that were confiscated from French Jews during World War II. It supports research and education about the Holocaust and Jewish culture. Another Paris official, Francoise de Panafieu, said the secretary who died opened the package in the presence of the lawyer, who was injured. Police told her the man was being treated for his wounds. Most of the other people injured had light injuries and shock, she said, without specifying the exact number of injured. The law office opened by Sarkozy and two other lawyers in the building was not answering phones Thursday afternoon. It was opened in 1987, according to the company's Web site. The practice changed its name from Arnaud Claude-Nicolas Sarkozy after Sarkozy's election in May, and is now called Arnaud Claude and Associates.