Intelligence agency director fined for causing bomb scare

“There will be a fine,” Hannover police spokesperson Stefan Wittke told the paper, adding that the penalty has not yet been determined.

Günter Heiss, the head of the domestic intelligence agency, or Verfassungsschutz, for the state attended a party put on by members of the conservative Christian Democrats’ state parliamentary group at the Hannover city hall. When security personnel discovered an abandoned briefcase near the buffet, they initiated a bomb alarm and evacuated the building. There were some 700 guests in attendance.

More than 10 officers and a dog searched the building, and it wasn’t until they opened the briefcase that they discovered the owner was a prominent guest.

“Yeah, I left it behind,” Heiss told the paper after the event. “It was a blunder that won’t happen again.”