RIGA - Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga's office was evacuated for about an hour on March 23 after a bomb threat that was made by an anonymous phone caller.
"The anonymous call was received shortly before 1 p.m.," presidential spokeswoman Aiva Rozenberga told BNS. "The Latvian president was not at her office in Riga Castle at that moment," Rozenberga added.
Imants Kasparans, head of security for parliament and the president's chancellery said the anonymous caller informed that the bomb had been planted near the castle. "He would not be able to get inside the castle, as it is guarded," Kasparans explained.
Security searched the castle and found no explosives there. "Everything is over, everybody is back to work as usual," Kasparans said.
The Latvian History Museum and the Museum of Foreign Art were also shut down for a short while due to the bomb scare.
The anonymous caller, who said a bomb was planted near the office of Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga, was a 12 year-old girl, the Latvian president said in an interview to Latvia's public television on Thursday evening.
"The 12-year-old girl apparently wanted to pull a prank," the president assumed.
She noted that responding to such hoaxes cost significant sums to the state. "I would like to urge all adolescents, if they want attention and so forth, to write to the president, and I will invite them for tea with something, but let them not waste state money," Vike-Freiberga said.
A bomb hoax costs the state at least 500 lats (EUR 711).
