Fine over Edinburgh Airport bomb claim
01.10.08
A Turkish man who claimed to have two bombs in his luggage at Edinburgh Airport was fined £400 for his act of ‘absolute lunacy’, the Evening News reports.
Fatih Alemdaroglu, 44, pleaded guilty to committing a breach of the peace at Edinburgh Airport on Monday by claiming to have two bombs in his luggage. Yesterday at Edinburgh Sheriff Court his defence solicitor Stephen Mannifield asked Sheriff to, ‘Treat my client as a silly man, not as a dangerous man’.
Fiscal Depute, Bruce Macrosson, said Alemdaroglu, a Turkish national, was at a check-in desk on Monday afternoon when he was asked if he had anything dangerous in his luggage. ‘Just a couple of bombs’ he replied. The staff member contacted the police and he was arrested. He told them: ‘I said a bomb and right after that I said I was joking’.
Mr Mannifield said his client was a self-employed floorer and had been on his way to visit family in Turkey. He missed his flight, lost the money he had paid for it and spent the night in custody. ‘As soon as he said it, he realised how stupid it was and tried to backtrack right away,’ he said.
Sheriff Gordon Liddle told the accused his actions had been ‘absolute lunacy’. People, he said, had to realise that making such remarks, in the light of the bombing at Glasgow Airport, was not in any way funny. He fined Alemdaroglu £400.
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