BarcelonaThe person responsible for the false bomb threat that caused an emergency landing at El Prat airport this Thursday has yet to be identified, as well as the consequences to which he may be exposed to be clarified. But the lawyers consulted by the ARA agree that the passenger could be charged with a crime of public disorder. The cases for false bomb warnings are not frequent, but in the State there has been at least one acquittal and a conviction for cases that, saving the distances, may be precedents for eventual legal proceedings for the events on the Turkish Airlines plane.
A message “on the way to fly the plane”
On July 3, 2022, a young man born in India and of British nationality was about to board a plane to Menorca in London when he sent a Snapchat message to a group of six friends. It said in English: “On my way to fly the plane (I am a member of the Taliban).” The security services intercepted the message as the plane flew over France and the alert mobilized a Eurofighter of the Spanish army to listen to it. Once on the ground and having registered the aircraft, they found that the threat was not real: there were no explosives.
Both the Prosecutor’s Office and the State Attorney’s Office asked to sentence the boy to 19 years in prison and a fine of 22,500 euros for a crime of public disorder. They also asked for compensation of almost 95,000 euros for the Ministry of Defense for the cost of mobilizing the aircraft, but the young man ended up acquitted.
The National Court assessed that it could not be interpreted “even remotely” that he had the intention to mobilize the army or any other emergency team, which is the key element that requires the type of penalty attributed to him. The ruling also took into account that the message had not been sent to any official body nor had it been disseminated beyond a private group.
The “lone wolf” of Vitoria
On April 4, 2015, a man called 112 in Euskadi warning that a bomb was about to explode in the Vitoria bus station: “Hello everyone, I’m the lone wolf, immediately, in less than 15 minutes, a device will explode in the new bus station, thank you.” This led to the activation of several officers from the Ertzaintza and the local police of Vitoria, although they did not find any suspicious objects at the station.
A criminal court in Vitoria was to try him a year later, but the man accepted a sentence without a hearing being necessary. After an agreement with the Prosecutor’s Office, he admitted the charge and accepted seven and a half months in prison for a crime of public disorder with the aggravating factor of recidivism.
From three months to one year in prison
In the two cases mentioned, an accusation was made of a modality of the crime of public disorder which is included in article 561 of the Penal Code and punishes “whoever falsely claims or simulates a dangerous situation” and provokes the activation of the police or rescue teams. The penalties set can range from three months to a year in prison, and the lawyers consulted agree that this is the type of crime that could be applied to the false emergency at Turkish Airlines, although they also warn that it would be necessary to study details of the case that have not yet transpired.
Penalist Jorge Navarro, vice-dean of the Bar Association of Barcelona (Icab), clarifies that for such a sentence the person sending the false alarm message must do so with this intention and, therefore, a joke or a comment in which the accused did not actually want to make a false warning would be left out. He adds that, in addition to the possible criminal responsibilities, the economic damages caused by the incident could be quantified and the defendant could have to pay for them. For example, the cost of mobilizing emergency teams.
The lawyer and professor of criminal law at the University of Barcelona (UB) Pol Olivet sees a conviction as more unlikely, but shares that the only type of crime that could be applied is that contained in article 561 of the Penal Code. Everything points to the fact that in this Thursday’s false alert, a passenger has created an internet network in which the name explicitly indicated that there was a bomb, but Olivet – unlike Navarro – doubts that this can be considered an active communication of the false warning.
There would even be the possibility, says Olivet, that no other passenger had gotten to consult the list of available internet networks, and therefore it is not the channel that someone who wants to send an alert would choose. “For me, the most important thing is how the message was sent. It would be necessary to know at what moment the passenger gives that name to the network and with what intention he does it,” he says.
