The explosion of a homemade bomb occurred on Sunday afternoon, near an underground mosque in the center of Athens. There were no reports of casualties, but material damage was recorded, including 3 cars parked in the neighborhood.
The explosion occurred at 15:40 at the entrance of an apartment building located at 22 Stefanu Byzantiou Street, at a time when the unofficial imam was inside a makeshift mosque.
Members of the Hellenic Police Investigation Department have collected the remnants of the mechanism for analysis at the Forensic Laboratory, and the only conclusions that have been drawn so far is that it is probably a simple homemade dynamite bomb with screws and nails added, which did not have any sentinel mechanism. The criminals approached the place, set fire to the fuse and threw an explosive device through the window.
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“Obviously, the target was a place of Muslim prayer, which gives reason to qualify this explosion as a terrorist attack. And as such, it must be investigated by the authorities,” reads, among other things, a statement released by the Muslim Union of Greece. The site was used as an “unofficial mosque” in the Patisia area in the center of Athens.
Police are investigating the matter, although there are reportedly speculations that the bombing had far-right motives.
Despite the construction of an official mosque, many illegal mosques have been set up in places densely populated by Muslim communities. According to the Greek police, at least 3 underground mosques are located only in the area of Aharnon Street. Despite the calls of local residents, the authorities do not respond to this, which may have caused this incident.
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