The National Police Criminal Investigation Directorate (Bareskrim) arrested 21-year-old Ilham, a college student at an undisclosed university in Serpong, South Tangerang, yesterday.
Ilham allegedly created a Twitter account, @SatNoToLGBT, with the sole intention of pulling off a prank – albeit a very dangerous one – on Singapore Airlines.
On July 1, Ilham posted a series of tweets warning Singapore Airlines that he planted a bomb on flight SQ221 from Singapore to Sydney.
According to Detik, the flight was delayed for a couple of hours as authorities performed heightened security checks on the plane in Singapore as a result of the tweets.
The police in Singapore then collaborated with Bareskrim to identify Ilham as the anonymous prankster. Ilham was arrested at 3am on Tuesday at his house.
To authorities, Ilham admitted that he intentionally tweeted the false bomb threat because he is an avid aviation fan. He wanted the SQ221, which is an Airbus A380 plane, to make an emergency landing in Jakarta just so he could see the world’s largest passenger airliner with his own eyes.
Ilham could be charged with violating anti-terrorism laws for his reckless prank.
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