Jamaican bomb hoax brings terrorism charges against airport employee

POLICE have charged a 46-year-old restaurant manager at the Kingston airport for terrorist offences in connection with a false alarm of a bomb on an air cargo flight which resulted in all Jamaican air freight being banned by the US, Canada and the Bahamas for nearly three days.


Accused is David Bernard, the first to be charged under the terrorism law, reported the Jamaica Observer. He is charged with "terrorism activity contrary to Section of the Terrorism Prevention Act as well committing an act endangering or likely to endanger aircraft safety, contrary to Section of the Tokyo, Hague and Montreal Conventions Act, and one count of public mischief.


"The circumstances, which led to the arrest and charge of Bernard are that on Sunday February 27 about 8:12 am, a call was received from a male caller by personnel from the Transnational Crime and Narcotics Division alleging that an employee of one of the duty-free shops was planning to place explosives on an American Airlines plane," said the Jamaica Constabulary in a statement.


"The investigations concluded that the information communicated to the police was false, malicious and was a personal vendetta against the duty-free shop employee," police said.
(Source:http://www.schednet.com)