Spanish army forced to deploy Eurofighter
The young British man who has been prosecuted by the National Court because in July 2022 he warned through his social networks of a false threat of a bomb on the plane in which he was flying and which was traveling from London to Menorca Was, he has accepted the facts but he has indicated that it was a joke between friends and that they made it in a private group on the social network Snapchat.
Aditya Verma, whom the prosecutor’s office charges The crime of public disorder which requires a fine of 22,500 euros plus compensation of approx. 95,000 euros to the Ministry of Defense for expenses derived from the deployment of the fighter aircraft that led that flighthas indicated to Public Ministry questions that when he was going to check-in for a flight at Gatwick Airport he took several photographs and one of them was shared to a “private” group that included a total of seven friends. Were. There’s a phrase in school that says “I’m going to blow up a plane, I’m a member of the Taliban,
The young man has repeatedly stated that this comment was made in a private context and with a group in which they usually made fun of him because of his Indian origin, considering the color of his skin. “I never thought about scaring people on that flight because the group was private and that message shouldn’t reach anyone else,” he explained after hinting that he and a group of friends were headed to the Balearic Islands to party. Were going towards. Ending the high stress exam period.
According to the story given in the indictment by the prosecutor’s office, That message was intercepted by United Kingdom security services while the plane was flying in French airspace, and they notified Spanish authorities., With this warning, and in the face of bomb threats Decision taken to deploy Eurofighter To escort the flight.
Ultimately, the plane landed at Menorca airport at around 4:44 pm and, as the Civil Guard reported in an information note, the young man was arrested.
I thought it was a maneuver for the war in Ukraine
When the young man was asked in his defense he indicated that when he saw the military jet in flight he thought it might be some maneuver related to the war between Russia and Ukraine, given that the conflict had been going on for some time. It had already started. And he remembered that the flight commander had explained to the passengers of the EasyJet company flight that “they had made a communication error and they sent a signal by mistake but they were fixing it and the fighter planes would stop following them. “
“I thought it was something conflict related,” he explained, denying that it ever occurred to him that it had anything to do with his joke.
After the accused, Civil Guard experts reported that they analyzed the young man’s device and, however, they discovered WhatsApp conversations in which he was interested in clashes between Pakistan and India and the possibility of an Islamic State attack in that region, they not inspected There is nothing interesting that could link him to Jihadi fundamentalism, “No connection was observed with radicalization or with any intention to plant a bomb or organize it (…). It seemed like a joke” one of them insisted.
They added that they had only analyzed the young man’s phone number and therefore did not know how the message became public, although they assumed that one of the seven members of the private group shared it with a third party. Will do.
This theory is refuted by both the defendant and a friend of his, who pointed out that when someone in a Snapchat group forwards chat content to a third party, a notice always appears that it has been shared outside the group. , and in this case it never came to be produced.
On the other hand, the friend, who was flying on that plane, has indicated that he believes that the message was intercepted by British security services due to the Wi-Fi network at Gatwick Airport, although the defendant in his turn had the last word. She remembered that she had used her private network, never the Airport one, but she did not know if anyone in the group had used it to view the chat.
A “Practical Joke”
At the time of the final report, and having made his conclusion definitive, the prosecutor focused on the fact that this was not a joke, but a “practical joke” and that the defendant knew what he was doing, so “I Was showing off”. Become Taliban.
In their opinion, Article 561 of the Penal Code, which refers to false bomb alarm, characterizes this behavior of the young man, with which the State Attorney’s Office agrees, which believes that the image was allegedly captured by the British security services. This was done legally via Wi-Fi networks and therefore represents “essential publicity which is part of the article of the Penal Code.”
for its part, The defense has indicated that the jurisprudence in this regard requires that the joke be credible “and that doesn’t happen when everyone boards the plane and is surprised when they see the fighter.”, He insisted, “The defendant had no intention of mobilizing emergency services, it was a joke in the private sector.”
In line, he points out that the fine demanded from his client is disproportionate and that the British government should in any case accept the expenses incurred from the fighter “for violating the privacy” of his client.
(tags to translate) News