Anti-capitalist group bomb Credit Suisse bank and home of finance company Glencore's boss



Postbox outside property owned by commodity trader blown up

Window broken in blast at bank branch in upmarket Zurich suburb



Unnamed group claims responsibility in letter on the indymedia website

Anti-capitalist activists protesting against the World Economic Forum in Davos have claimed responsibility for explosions that broke a window at a Zurich branch of Credit Suisse and blew up the postbox of the boss of commodity trader Glencore.



Police confirmed on Friday that attacks had been made on a Credit Suisse branch in the upmarket residential area of Hottingen and a postbox in the lakeside suburb of Rueschlikon in the early hours of Thursday morning.



Credit Suisse confirmed a security window of its branch had been shattered. Police said the damage, caused by an unidentified explosive device, amounted to several thousand francs.



Targetted: A postbox outside a property owned by Glencore CEO Ivan Glasenberg was blown up by activists protesting against the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland

A spokesman for Zurich police said investigations were continuing into who was behind the attacks and what had caused the explosions, while Glencore confirmed an incident had taken place on the property of CEO Ivan Glasenberg. No-one was injured in either attack.

An unnamed group posted a letter on the indymedia.ch website claiming responsibility for the attacks. The letter said the group had targeted Credit Suisse and Glasenberg due to their support of the WEF.

In the letter, the activists criticised poor working conditions at Glencore and said it had targeted Credit Suisse for a host of reasons, including food price speculation, mass job losses and 'betting against the Greek people'.



Glencore Chief Executive Ivan Glasenberg has been scrutinised for his company's involvement in mining operations in countries from Zambia to Colombia

Glencore's 2011 stock market flotation has led to increased scrutiny by environmental and anti-corruption campaigners over its involvement in mining operations in countries from Zambia to Colombia.



Until the listing, Glasenberg, who grew up in South Africa and became CEO in 2002, had lived with his family in relative anonymity in Rueschlikon, a lakeside town about 6 km from Zurich where he moved in 1994.



In 2011, left-wing activists claimed responsibility for a small explosion that broke windows at a hotel in Davos without hurting anybody.



At the time, a group calling itself Revolutionary Perspective said in a statement on an activist website it had targeted the ski resort's luxury Posthotel with a fire bomb as Swiss ministers and representatives of top bank UBS were staying there.

Last night British Prime Minister David Cameron, Chancellor George Osborne and London Mayor Boris Johnson were pictured enjoying a ‘raucous’ meal in an expensive restaurant in Davos.



The group were spotted at the ‘cosy’ Alte Post restaurant in Davos where the cheapest option is a £22 pizza and some wine runs into hundreds of pounds.

Greenpeace activists shut down a Shell petrol station near Davos to protest against the oil firm's drilling programme in the Arctic by chaining themselves to fuel pumps.



Others dressed as polar bears prowled the streets and tried to get into the WEF conference centre.

High security: A member of Swiss special police forces watches over the Swiss ski resort of Davos from the roof of a Hotel during this year's Meeting of the World Economic Forum

Greenpeace protesters shut down a Shell petrol station in Davos in a protest against drilling for oil in the Arctic

Greenpeace director Kumi Naidoo who was holding meeting with the CEO's of several major companies said: 'Frankly, I'd rather be risking arrest and taking part in an act of peaceful civil disobedience.

'But if we are going to make it through the unelected, unrepresentative, super-powerful people prowling the corridors of Davos, we will need to be inside.

Protest has been less visible in Davos this year compared with the igloo camp set up by 'Occupy' activists in 2012.









