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Italian passenger calls in ‘bomb threat’ to delay plane

Tardy man alleges he overheard two Arabic-speaking men saying they placed device on board his flight

By ToI Staff 3 October 2015, 10:12 pm

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An Alitalia Boeing 777-200ER parked at Tokyo's Narita International Airport in 2006. (CC BY-SA, Wikimedia commons)

An Italian man was arrested Thursday after calling in a fake bomb threat so that he wouldn’t miss his flight from Milan to Rome.

The 46-year-old man called a local police station and said that he overheard two Arabic-speaking passengers saying they had “placed a bomb on board” the Alitalia plane, Italy’s La Stampa reported.

According to the report, all passengers and luggage were evacuated from the plane minutes before its scheduled 9:00 p.m. takeoff.

After an extensive search, Milan police did not detect any security threats.

The man was arrested, held overnight by police and released Friday morning.

It is unclear what charges the man will face. However a French man arrested in a similar case earlier this year faces a €30,000 ($33,600) fine and up to two years in prison. He may also be placed on a No-Fly List, barring him from future air travel to and from Italy. The 33-year-old man was caught by French police in May at the Bordeaux airport after alleging a bomb threat so that his girlfriend, who was stuck in traffic, would make the flight.