Some unregistered weapons were found at the Palestinian mission in Prague, where the ambassador was killed by an explosion while opening a safe a day before, Czech police reported.
The investigators working at the scene of Wednesday’s blast found
weapons that “have not gone through a registration process in
the Czech Republic,” Prague police chief Martin Vondrasek
said on Czech Radio.
“We have gathered many pieces of evidence, we secured weapons
that will be subject to expert evaluation,” the police
official added.
He gave no details on what type or quantity of arms was found.
The Czech foreign ministry said it was concerned by the discovery
of weapons not registered in the country.
“In such case, the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations
may have been breached and we will demand an explanation,”
the ministry said in statement.
The 56-year-old Palestinian Ambassador to the Czech Republic, Jamal al-Jamal, died in hospital on January 1, hours after he was taken there following a blast at his residence. Palestinian officials said he was opening a safe at the time of the explosion.
Police on Thursday said they were not treating the explosion at the residence as a terrorist incident. The blast might have been caused by mishandling of an explosive that could have been securing the contents of the safe, Reuters quoted police as saying.
Confusion arose on Wednesday after Palestinian Foreign Minister
Riad Malki said the safe had come from the former Palestinian
Liberation Organization’s offices, and that it had not been used
for 20-25 years.
Palestinian Embassy spokesman Nabil El-Fahel later said that
Malki had misspoken, and that the safe in question had in fact
been used “daily.” He added that there was another
“empty” safe, which Malki could have been
“mistakenly” referring to.
Al-Jamal was appointed to the post of ambassador only last
October, and there are “no indications that he could be
specifically targeted by anybody,” Mustafa Barghouti, a
Palestinian MP, told RT.