Man claims bomb in Australian hostage standoffHEADLINE
SYDNEY - September 5, 2011
Clerk Betty Hor said she was working at the reception desk of
lawyers' offices adjoining the court complex, which houses family
and criminal court rooms in the western Sydney suburb of
Parramatta, when the man approached Tuesday morning and asked to
see someone whom Hor had never heard of. The man was accompanied by
a girl aged about 10 or 11, Hor said.
The man went upstairs briefly then returned to the reception
desk and repeated his request. She repeated that she had never
heard of the man he was looking for.
Hor said he then threw a book on the desk and told her to call
the unknown man and the state attorney-general's department and
"tell them I've got a bomb in my backpack."
Hor called police as the man walked upstairs to a lawyer's
office with the girl, who called him "Dad."
Hor said he seemed frustrated and angry. She said she had never
seen him before.
Police said in a statement that it was not known why the man
entered the building, or what he was "in possession of."
Television footage showed the man looking from a second-floor
window shirtless and wearing the same kind of wig as worn in
Australian courts by judges and lawyers. Police maintained a cordon
around the building. At one stage he spat on the wig.
Ambulance service spokeswoman Caroline Woods said several
ambulances were waiting at the scene but would not say what was
happening there.
A fire truck was also seen waiting near the building.