Prince Charles had a rather fiery encounter with a Latvian redhead on Thursday when a 16-year-old Bolshevik schoolgirl slapped him about the face with a bunch of flowers as he chatted to two young girls waving Union flags. The Prince, who was on a walkabout in the Latvian capital of Riga as part of a five-day visit to the Baltic states, ducked slightly and raised his arm to try and fend off the three red carnations being used in the attack. He was not hurt in the incident, which took place minutes after he had laid a wreath on the city’s Freedom Monument.
The girl, Alina Lebedeva, said she was protesting against Latvia joining NATO and was against the war in Afghanistan. “Britain is the enemy,” added the teenager who is a pupil at a Russian school in the Latvian city of Daugavpilf and a member of the pro-communist party which seeks the restoration of the Soviet Union. Following the attack, she was led away by police and was later charged with "endangering the health and life of a foreign dignitary."
Although the Prince’s staff dismissed the incident and the Prince continued his walkabout unflustered, the heir to the British throne swapped his usual pre-dinner glass of water for a stiff Scotch. His hosts, however, seemed embarrassed, and President Vaira Vike-Freiberga immediately apologized, saying: “There are mentally unstable and ill people who wish to stick out at such occasions in all countries.”
Photo: © Alphapress.com
The Prince of Wales draws back in surprise as 16-year-old Latvian schoolgirl Alina Lebedeva swipes at him with a handful of carnations
