Letter bomb intercepted at Rome tax agency

ROME - Agence France-Presse

A forensic officer inspects a car outside an Equitalia office in Rome Dec 9, 2011. REUTERS photo

A letter bomb sent to a Rome tax collection office was intercepted on Thursday, a week after a first bomb exploded, nearly blinding the director who opened it, Italian media reported.

"Bomb disposal experts were called in this morning after a suspect package was reported at the Equitalia office," a police spokesman told AFP. The experts were still examining the package and had found "dark powder inside," he said.

He confirmed that "the powder tested positive" as an explosive.

An Italian far-left group claimed responsibility for the letter bomb last week that wounded the tax collection company's director, following a first foiled attack on the head of Deutsche Bank.
 
The first two packages included a note signed by FAI - Federazione Anarchica Informale (Informal Federation of Anarchy) which had referred to "three explosions against banks, bankers, ticks and bloodsuckers." Thursday's envelope was "similar to" the one which exploded last week, the Corriere della Sera newspaper reported.
 
A note inside the latest package said "don't kill yourself, rebel: death to usurers!" the daily said.
 
Equitalia's director general Marco Cuccagna was hospitalised last Friday after a letter he opened at the agency's headquarters in Rome blew up and destroyed his glass desk, wounding him in the hand and eyes.
 
The letter bomb sent to the head of Germany's biggest bank, Deutsche Bank, was primed and could have exploded, but was intercepted after suspicious staff x-rayed it.
 
Equitalia, which has been accused of making mistakes with regular taxpayers, is widely unpopular in a country where tax evasion is rampant.
 
The FAI has been behind a string of attacks on European institutions, as well as a bombing campaign in Rome a year ago that injured two people at the embassies of Switzerland and Chile.