Fake bomb causes evacuation of Dutch parliament building

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – The Dutch parliament building was evacuated for a short while on Thursday afternoon after a bomb alert that turned out to be false.

Local police said an explosives team had investigated a package at the building in downtown The Hague and had subsequently allowed people to re-enter, about an hour after they had been ordered to leave.

Dutch anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders said a fake bomb addressed to him had been the cause of the evacuation.

“A package with a teddy bear and wires addressed to me was delivered to the mail room of parliament”, Wilders said in a post on Twitter.

“Luckily without explosives and not dangerous, but certainly no fun.”

Wilders, whose far-right Freedom Party has become the Netherlands’ second-largest, has been living under tight security measures for years due to death threats.

(Reporting by Bart Meijer Editing by Jon Boyle and Mark Potter)