Police search for City Hall intruder

PALMA
POLICE in Palma are searching for an intruder who slipped in to City Hall in Plaza Cort on Tuesday night, setting off the alarm, sources close to the investigation said yesterday.

A large number of officers scoured the City Council headquarters over several hours in search of the intruder but he had managed to escape from the premises without being seen.

A night watchman had detected that there was an unwanted presence in the building at around 10pm. The officer had been doing a tour of duty of the ground floor when moments later, the alarm went off in one of the areas of the building alongside a laboratory in the old part of Plaza de Santa Eulalia.

The watchman returned to the area of the premises where he had been just a few minutes previously and from where the alarm had been triggered. There he saw the intruder who fled after being surprised. After the incident was reported, various units of Local Police rushed to City Hall along with a number of Government guards. Some stood guard at all the entrances to the building whilst others searched the interior.

There were no signs of a break-in in the laboratory area and at first glance, there didn't seem to have been anything disturbed. A police spokesman said yesterday that there were no items or documents of value in that particular part of the building, as essentially the laboratory was used for the analysis of food and water quality.

It is believed, said the spokesman, that the intruder may have left the building by the same means he got in, possibly through a window. However, faced with the possibility that the man may still have been on the premises, the officers searched the building thoroughly, floor by floor by torchlight.

The decision was finally made that the intruder had not remained in the building but investigations to identify and locate him are ongoing, confirmed the spokesman.