German police give all-clear over package at Merkel’s office

The office of German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been sealed off due to a suspicious package, a police spokesman said on Wednesday

German police gave an all-clear after investigating a package at Chancellor Angela Merkel’s office in central Berlin on Wednesday.

Police secures the area around suspicious yellow postal crates near the chancellory in Berlin, Germany on January 6, 2016. The office of Chancellor Angela Merkel has been sealed off due to a suspicious package, a police spokesman said on Wednesday. (REUTERS)

“The experts found nothing suspicious,” a spokesperson for Germany’s Federal Police said.

Earlier in the day, Merkel’s office was sealed off due to the package. A Reuters eyewitness said there were four plastic yellow postal crates in the cordoned off area.

The ministers had earlier carried on with their regular meeting after police cordoned off an area around the Chancellery.

The incident comes hours after Merkel slammed the ‘disgusting’ sex attacks on women by a huge gang of men in the city of Cologne on New Year’s Eve.

In 2010, police intercepted a packaged containing explosives sent from Greece to Merkel’s office in Berlin.

Europe has entered 2016 under a state of heightened alert, seven weeks after Islamist militants killed 130 people in shootings and suicide blasts across Paris.

The incident follows a security scare over New Year after police received a tip that militants from Iraq and Syria were planning attacks in Munich.