Gatwick Airport: British man acquitted after sparking major bomb threat on easyJet flight to Spain

A British tourist has been acquitted after he sparked a major bomb alert on an easyJet flight to Spain. The incident occurred on 3 July 2022, and Aditya Verma, from Orpington in Kent, who was 18 at the time, was tried on Monday (22 January).

Mr Verma was waiting for his plane at London Gatwick Airport when he allegedly posted a message on the social media platform Snapchat claiming to be a member of the Taliban and that he had planted a bomb. The threat led to a full-scale emergency operation and the flight was intercepted on its way to Menorca in the Balearics by a Spanish Air Force fighter jet.

The jet escorted the plane with 142 passengers on board into the holiday airport. The prosecutor says the man was at Gatwick Airport at the check-in desk when he sent the message to a group of friends with whom he was flying. The message contained a photograph of himself with the phrase "on the way to fly the plane (I am a member of the Taliban)".

The message was captured by the United Kingdom security services when the plane was flying over French airspace and they notified the Spanish authorities. The Palma control tower informed the head of coordination at the Menorca Airport that the flight from Gatwick was being escorted by a Spanish Air Force fighter due to a bomb threat.

Once on the ground, after a thorough inspection, the Civil Guard verified that it was a false alarm. The Civil Guard had to activate a special operation made up of specialists in explosives deactivation, dog handlers and members of the Fiscal and Border Patrol and Citizen Security.

The young British man was arrested for a crime of public disorder. On Monday a judge in Madrid ruled that "no explosive... was found that would lead one to believe it was a real threat". The trial was held at the National Court in the Spanish capital and the judge ruled that Mr Verma should be cleared of any wrongdoing. If he had been found guilty, the university student faced a fine of up to €22,500 (£19,300) and a further €95,000 in expenses to cover the cost of the jets being scrambled.

A question raised in the case was how the message got out as Snapchat is an encrypted app. In the trial one theory that was raised was that it could have been intercepted via Gatwick's Wi-Fi network. - but a spokesperson for the airport told BBC News that its network "does not have that capability".

The Europa Press news agency reported that in the judge's resolution it was said that the message "for unknown reasons, was captured by the security mechanisms of England when the plane was flying over French airspace". It was not immediately clear how UK authorities were alerted to the message. But the judge noted that "they were not the subject of evidence in this trial". According to the BBC, a spokesperson for Snapchat said the social media platform would not "comment on what's happened in this individual case".