A 21-year old college student, named only as Ilham, has been arrested by the Indonesian authorities for making a prank bomb threat against Singapore Airlines.
The prankster is believed to be a student of a university in Serpong, South Tangerang, yesterday.
According to news reports, Ilham allegedly created a Twitter account with the sole intention of pulling off the prank.
He is believed to be an aviation fan and had wanted to see the new SQ221, which is an Airbus A380 plane, and the tweet was to force the plane to make an emergency landing in Jakarta so that he could see the plane for himself.
He thus made the threat through Twitter directed at flight SQ221 which was flying from Singapore to Sydney.
According to reports, the flight was delayed for several hours as the authorities carried out checks to determine the threat.
The Singapore and Indonesian police worked together and Ilham was arrested at 3am on Tuesday at his house.
He admitted to the prank and could now face charges under anti-terrorism laws.
“Yes, we arrested him at his house in Tangerang yesterday,” said the director of economic crimes at the police’s Detective Corps, Brig. Gen. Victor Edison Simanjuntak.
He added that while the authorities believed Ilham had acted alone, they are nevertheless still investigating if others are involved.
