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The Barefoot Intruder - Presidential Palace
On the night of 27 to 28 June 2016, a barefoot stranger climbed the back fence of Slovakia's Presidential Palace, roamed its top floor for 20 minutes while the guards switched off the alarm as false, and walked out unchallenged, a blunder that cost the head of the protection service his post.
À propos de ce lieu
The gleaming white Grassalkovich Palace, built in 1760 for a confidant of Empress Maria Theresa and the seat of Slovakia's president since 1996, should be one of the best guarded buildings in the country. Yet around one in the morning on 28 June 2016, just three days before Slovakia took over the presidency of the Council of the European Union and only hours after police had rehearsed protecting the country's top officials, a man hopped the glass fence at the back, slipped through an unsecured staff entrance and climbed to the top floor. For about twenty minutes he wandered the corridors, carrying his sneakers in his hands. When the alarm went off, the security staff dismissed it as false and switched it off, and he left through a side door onto Banskobystrická street, opening it from the inside. Nothing was taken, but cameras dating partly from 1994 had caught his face. President Andrej Kiska, who was not in the building, joked that the man may have thought he was at home and did not want to wake his wife, then demanded answers. The chief of the protection office, Radovan Horváth, asked to be relieved the same day, and on 30 June police arrested a 35 year old Czech man and charged him with unlawful entry.
À retenir
- 20 minutes — How long the barefoot intruder wandered the palace's top floor before strolling out through a side door, unchallenged.
- 3 days — The intrusion came just three days before Slovakia took over the presidency of the Council of the EU on 1 July 2016.
- 1760 year — The Rococo palace was completed for Count Antal Grassalkovich, a trusted adviser of Empress Maria Theresa.