Dubai, October 16: A visitor was jailed for three months on Thursday for causing a midair bomb scare and spreading panic on an Emirates flight before fighting with another passenger and crew members.
The Court of First Instance found the 52-year-old Libyan guilty of the charges of endangering the safety of the Emirates flight and its passengers by causing the bomb scare and assault. He was ordered to be deported after serving his jail term.
According to the court records, the Libyan was heavily intoxicated when he caused a stir on the flight from Tunisia to Dubai on April 12.
A woman air service supervisor told the prosecutors that she saw the Libyan consuming alcohol right before the flight took off.
He yelled at passengers and slapped one of them and then threatened everybody, saying “the plane is under my control and it is going to be hijacked”. He then pretended he had a strap of explosives with which he would “detonate the plane”.
A South African flight attendant said the other passengers were extremely frightened when he spoke about the bomb.
“The crew members took quick action and they brought the passenger under control,” the attendant told prosecutors. They then contacted the control tower at the Dubai International Airport.
“Shortly after (the plane landed), police officers based at the airport came to the gate and took the Libyan out,” a Lebanese flight attendant said.
The report of the Criminal Evidence Department confirmed the man’s blood sample proved alcohol consumption.
The defendant has been in provisional detention since April. He had pleaded not guilty.
–Agencies