Ethiopian Informer
ADDIS ABABA: August 31 (EI) – An Ethiopian man who was arrested in April this year for raising a false bomb alarm in a Johannesburg-bound Kenya Airways plane has been sentenced to four months in prison.
Chifraye Bekele, who is an Ethiopian national, was sentenced to four months in prison or a Sh100,000 on Wednesday fine for causing the commotion that led to a temporary shutdown of the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA), Kenya’s Daily Nation reported.
Magistrate Christine Njagi found him guilty of “imperiling the safety of aircraft and persons on board.”
The Ethiopian national asked a flight attendant as she was closing an overhead locker: “Why are you scared? You think it’s a bomb?, according to the judgment.
In court, testifying via a translator, Bekele said he did not make the joke as he only spoke Amharic and not English, the report added.
The passenger mentioned the word ‘bomb’ just before the plane took off, causing a scare that led to the grounding of the aircraft that was scheduled to depart JKIA at 1pm, but later flew at 7:30pm.
Kenya Civil Aviation Authority director-general Gilbert Kibe also told the Kenyan media outlets after the April bomb scare incident that a commotion begun after an argument ensued between a flight attendant and the passenger.
“This is an act of unlawful interference. The police are set to press criminal charges against him,” said Kibe then.
