A car driven by a man apparently suffering from psychiatric problems has rammed through a Vatican gate, speeding past Swiss Guards into a palace courtyard before the driver was apprehended by police.
Vatican gendarmes fired a shot at the speeding car’s front tyres after it rushed the gate on Thursday night, but the vehicle managed to continue on its way, the Vatican press office said.
Once the car reached the San Damaso courtyard of the Apostolic Palace, the driver got out and was immediately arrested by Vatican gendarmes. The Vatican said the driver was about 40 years old and was in a “serious state of psychophysical alteration”. He was being held in the Vatican barracks.
It was not clear whether Pope Francis was anywhere near the incident, which occurred after 8pm at the Santa Anna gate, one of the main entrances to the Vatican City state in the heart of Rome. The pope lives on the other side of Vatican City at the Santa Marta hotel, where at that hour he would normally be having dinner and retiring to his room.
The Vatican statement said that as soon as the gendarmes sounded the alarm for an incursion, the main gate blocking access to the piazza in front of Francis’s hotel was shut.
The incident was a rare incursion into the city state, much of which is off limits to the general public, especially at night.
While visitors can access St Peter’s Basilica and the Vatican museums during business hours, and people with doctor’s prescriptions can go to the Vatican pharmacy, permission is required to enter other buildings in the enclave.
The Apostolic Palace, which houses the papal apartments, key reception rooms, the Vatican archives and offices, is guarded around the clock by Swiss Guards and gendarmes who staff various checkpoints.
It was not the first time that someone with apparent psychiatric problems has caused a disturbance at the Vatican. During a 2009 Christmas Eve Mass, a woman jumped the barricade of St Peter’s Basilica and tried to attack Pope Benedict XVI. He was not harmed, though a cardinal walking in the procession broke his hip in the ruckus.
