Authorities in the wealthy city-state of Monaco have launched a manhunt that’s stretched across the border into France after three people were wounded in an explosion caused by a bomb planted in a residential building.
Monaco’s Prosecutor General Stéphane Thibault called the bombing an “attempted assassination” in a news conference on Tuesday, ruling out terrorism as the motive.
Thibault said that an unidentified suspect placed a parcel bomb in a residential building just before 9 p.m. local time on Monday. The bomb went off shortly after that, when three people who live in an appartment on the ground floor of the building arrived home, he added. All three – two adults and a child – were injured in the blast and taken to a hospital in Nice in France, according to the authorities.
Two more people wounded by glass debris on the street outside the building, Thibault said.
CNN’s French affiliate BFMTV reported that the target of the explosion was the Ukrainian-born businessman Vadym Yermolaiev. Thibault refused to identify the victims in the news conference, only saying that a male victim was a resident of Monaco since 2021.
