London: Police arrested a man for throwing shotgun cartridges outside Buckingham Palace on Tuesday and officers also set off a controlled explosion in the area days before King Charles’ coronation ceremony.
Police said the man had approached the gates of Buckingham Palace and what was suspected to be shotgun cartridges in the palace grounds before being detained by officers at around 1800 GMT.
“The man has been arrested on suspicion of possessing an offensive weapon and was searched and a knife found,” London’s Metropolitan Police said in an updated statement.
The statement said that the police are not currently treating the case as a terrorism-related case.
Police and security services are preparing for King Charles’s coronation on Saturday, which is expected to see huge crowds line the streets of London and heads of state from around the world to attend the formal ceremony.
Buckingham Palace said neither the king nor his wife Camilla were at the palace at the time of Tuesday’s incident.
In 2016, an unarmed man was arrested in the grounds of Buckingham Palace after scaling a perimeter wall. In 2021, a man wearing a mask and holding a crossbow was arrested at Windsor Castle on Christmas Day.
King Charles’s coronation will take place on 6 May
King Charles, who became monarch of the United Kingdom and 14 other realms upon the death of his mother Queen Elizabeth last September, will be crowned on May 6 in a ceremony filled with pomp, pageantry and religious significance.
For the best part of a thousand years, the kings and queens of England and Britain have been crowned at Westminster Abbey in London in a ceremony that has changed little over the centuries.
Originally, a coronation was a requirement for a monarchy, but it is now a ceremonial event and no other monarchy around the world has an event in the same style.
During the ceremony, Charles will take an oath to uphold the law and the Church of England.
Sitting on the historic Coronation Chair known as King Edward’s Chair and containing the Stone of Destiny, he will be anointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the spiritual leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion, who is anointed with holy oil in Jerusalem Will go
Charles will also be presented with various highly ornate gold jewellery, a scepter, swords and a ring, all of which are part of the Crown Jewels and variously symbolize the monarch’s power, authority and duties and the power of God.
The archbishop will place on his head the massive St Edward’s Crown used at coronations for the last 350 years.