An intoxicated Irishman was arrested after erroneously looking for his hostel room
An Irishman rather the worse for wear has been arrested for breaking into the Palace of the Parliament in Bucharest, Romania, after allegedly confusing it with his hostel. A major security review is underway after the incident.
An Irishman rather the worse for wear has been arrested for breaking into the Palace of the Parliament in Bucharest, Romania, after allegedly confusing it with his hostel. A major security review is underway after the incident.
“On the morning of 27.12.2021, at around 04.00, the gendarmes guarding the Palace of the Parliament notified the 17th Police Station about a man in a state of intoxication inside the palace. The first checks allowed them to establish that he had entered the yard by climbing the fence. Then he broke a window and entered the building,” the Romanian gendarmerie said in a press release.
The police said that nothing in the palace had been damaged apart from the broken window.
A criminal investigation has now been opened. The man, identified by some news outlets as Richard Commins, faces up to three years in prison.
According to the Irish edition of The Sun, the man had explained to the police that, after a party in Bucharest’s Old Town, he had mistaken the palace for his hotel and was looking for his room. He did not remember how he had managed to enter the palace grounds or reached the third story of one of the most protected buildings in the country.
Local media sources have pointed out some illogicalities in his explanation, saying that even an alcohol- and cocaine-intoxicated person could hardly have mixed up a parliamentary palace – the world’s second-largest administrative building after the Pentagon – with a hostel, especially given it bears no resemblance and the distance between the two is about 2km (1.2 miles).
It’s also unclear why the intruder wasn’t caught on any video surveillance cameras.
“It’s a mystery how this guy managed to get in,” an investigating source told The Sun.
According to the outlet, the incident has prompted a review of security measures in the 3,000-room palace.
