Police arrested a 59-year old man who drove his car onto the Parliament courtyard in the morning hours of Monday after a chase.

The incident started when employees at the Attiki Odos highway called police about a driver who had stopped his car on the highway and was harassing other motorists.

Once police arrived the driver, who was reportedly inebriated attempted to escape arrest.

In the chase that followed the suspect managed to drive his vehicle as far as the centre of Athens at Syntagma Square, where he veered off course and crashed some of the small street columns on Vssilisis Sofias and Rizari, before eventually ending up on the Parliament courtyard in front of the monument of the unknown soldier.

There the driver was apprehended by police officers and taken to the local precinct for questioning.

It has not yet been determined whether the safety bar was deployed on the Parliament entrance or if the runaway vehicle smashed it before ending up on the courtyard.