Police on Friday opened an investigation after a suspicious odor at the Swedish Security Service (SAPO) office left eight people needing hospital treatment with respiratory symptoms.
Images from the scene showed police wearing gas masks alongside several ambulances and emergency vehicles as an area around the office of the agency was closed off.
“Around 1:00pm today, there were indications that there was a dangerous substance at SAPO’s offices,” said Patrik Soderberg, chief physician at the local healthcare authority Region Stockholm.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“A total of eight people with symptoms have been treated at hospital,” Region Stockholm said in a statement, adding that the “cause of the leak was still unclear.”
After ending their emergency operation, police said they had started an investigation into “causing bodily harm,” but did not have any suspects.
Police said an area of “a couple of hundred meters” around the building had been closed off after “a potential gas leak.”
Some of those taken to hospital were officers who had “smelled an odor when they arrived,” the service added in a statement.
SAPO spokeswoman Karin Lutz said that the intelligence agency had called emergency services after receiving an alarm.
The building had been “partly evacuated” during the emergency, but declined to give further details or comment on whether they suspected foul play, Lutz said.
In a later statement, SAPO said that “emergency services ended the operation after confirming that there was no gas inside the premises or outside the building.”
The Nordic country is on high alert as it is expecting to clear the final hurdle to its bid to join NATO tomorrow, with the last holdout Hungary scheduled to vote on ratifying its membership.
The daily Aftonbladet said that witnesses had reported smelling something that reminded them of paint, and that locals had been told to close their windows.
Swedish media also reported that a gas sensor on the roof of the building had registered the presence of phosgene, but these reports have not been confirmed.
The gas was used as a chemical warfare agent during World War I, but is also widely used in industry for the production of plastics and pesticide.
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