Australian Police in 'Bomb' Siege Drama at Law Firm
Australian police were negotiating Tuesday with a man claiming to have a bomb after he burst into a law firm with his young daughter, forcing parts of a Sydney business district to be evacuated.
Authorities were trying to convince the middle-aged man to give himself up as roads in the Parramatta area of western Sydney were shut and workers cleared from the scene, which is near the city's Family Court precinct.
The man entered the legal offices with a 12-year-old girl and demanded to see a person who was unknown to staff, a clerk told reporters. He claimed to have a bomb in his backpack.
"He had made threats in relation to a backpack," Assistant Commissioner Denis Clifford said, adding that his motive was unclear.
"We have police negotiators on the scene. They have been talking to the man for some hours now. He had made a number of demands.
"We are doing the best we can to secure a peaceful resolution."
Clifford said that they were treating the bomb claims seriously.
"We don't know exactly what is in that backpack. We have to assume that what he is saying is true at this stage."
He added that negotiators had spoken to his daughter who was coping "as well as she can be."
"Our priority is a peaceful resolution, firstly to secure the release of the young girl, and then the man himself," he said.
Television footage showed a shirtless, middle-aged man wearing a lawyer's wig looking out of an office window.
He later smashed a hole through one of the glass panels and reportedly dropped down a handwritten note.
Channel Ten, citing police sources, said the man, from a country town west of Sydney, had been involved in a security incident at the city's Parliament House on Monday, and was later detained at nearby government offices.
A clerk at the law firm told the Australian Associated Press the man wanted to see a particular person who was not known to the company.
"He said he was looking for a certain person," said the woman, who declined to be named. "I told him he wasn't here, I told him he is not a client of ours, I do not know him.
"When I told him there was nobody here by that name he went up to the next level of the building then came back down... and he asked for the person again.
"I said, 'I'm saying he's not here'. He then went to the front of the building and said 'call the Attorney General's department, call (this person) and tell them I've got a bomb in my backpack.'"
Clifford said as long as "we are talking to the person, and no one has been injured, we are making progress."
Source: Agence France Presse
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