An explosion at Palestinian Ambassador Jamal al-Jamal’s Prague home resulted in the ambassador’s death on Wednesday. Al-Jamal had been placed in a medically induced coma soon after the explosion, but the efforts failed to save him. From the AP:
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry said the blast occurred when the 56-year-old diplomat was moving an old office safe box. It was not immediately clear how the explosives got there, and the ministry said the blast was being investigated.
A 52 year-old woman—whose relation to al-Jamal is unclear—was also injured in the blast.
***Update, 11:40 AM: It appears that the blast may have been a very strange and unfortunate accident. Reuters now reports:
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry said ambassador Jamal al-Jamal had been trying to open a safe that was recently moved to his new home and a Czech government source told Reuters that the explosion was probably caused by a security device on the unit.
It was unclear what that was. Some safes can be fitted with mechanisms designed to destroy secret documents in the event of the lock being tampered with. The Czech source said the government did not believe it was a terrorist attack.
