French authorities arrested a man on Friday who is suspected of entering the Iranian consulate in Paris and falsely claiming to be armed with an explosive vest, police and prosecutors said.
No explosives or weapons were found on the man or in the premises when he surrendered to police following the incident.
The man born in Iran in 1963 had already been convicted of burning tires at the entrance of the Iranian embassy in Paris in 2023, the Paris prosecutor’s office announced.
Police arrested the suspect, whose name has not yet been released, when he left the consulate on his own accord after “threatening violence” inside, the statement said.
According to a police source, who asked not to be named, the suspect was wearing a vest with large pockets that contained three fake grenades. The area around the consulate in the capital’s 16th district was closed and many police officers had arrived, AFP reports.
Two metro lines with stops near the consulate were temporarily suspended. The Iranian embassy and consulate share the same building, but different entrances on separate streets.
Paris prosecutors confirmed that the same man was due to stand trial on Monday in connection with the fire at the diplomatic mission in September 2023.
A lower court had given him an eight-month suspended sentence and banned him from entering the consulate area for two years and from carrying weapons. However, he appealed the verdict.
At the time, the man saw the action as a backlash against Iran’s clerics, who stood up to “Woman. Life. Freedom” and sparked nationwide protests.
Reports say the man left Iran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution and has expressed support for the former imperial regime.
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