A home-made explosive device was located and defused in a controlled explosion by the police bomb disposal unit, outside the tax office of Korydallos, shortly after midnight on Monday morning.

­Telephone calls were made at the Mega Channel television station (at 23:22) and the Zougla.gr news website (at 23:31), warning of an explosion within twenty minutes.

The police was contacted immediately and in turn cordoned off the area around the tax office. The police’s bomb disposal unit located a suspicious duffle bag by the entrance of the tax office and waited for the explosive device to go off, as indicated in the telephone warnings, before opting to defuse the bomb via controlled explosion.

The bomb disposal unit later discovered that the explosive device had been rigged with a time to go off at a specific time, however for an as yet undetermined reason, it did not go off as planned. The remains of the device have been taken to the police’s crime investigation labs for further examination the counter-terrorism police.