MIRI: Cracking a joke about having a bomb in one’s checked-in luggage is no laughing matter. It will land one in hot soup.
This is exactly what a low-cost airline passenger here found out the hard way.
The man who wanted to appear like a comedian was picked up by the police at 8.10am yesterday at the airport for joking about a bomb inside his luggage at a check-in counter.
“When asked by a counter staff member during the check-in process, the man jokingly said that there was a bomb in his luggage,” said Miri police chief ACP Lim Meng Seah.
The 28-year-old was about to travel to Kuala Lumpur on flight AK5641.
“The man was asked three times about what he had in his luggage and three times he said there was a bomb inside his luggage.
“The official then informed the airport security and the man was quickly detained and handed over to the airport police,” said Lim.
His luggage was checked but there was no bomb.
Lim reminded passengers and the public to refrain from making any joke about bombs and security threats as authorities take them seriously.
The offence is framed under Section 506 of the Penal Code which deals with criminal intimidation.
This was not the first such case involving jokes about bombs at airports. In August 2013, two students from Sabah were detained at the Kuching International Airport (KIA) one Friday afternoon after one of them said he had a bomb in his carry-on luggage.
The matter was immediately brought to the attention of KIA security personnel and the students were arrested and taken to Kota Sentosa police station for questioning.
Later, a bomb disposal unit found no explosive material inside their luggage.
In July 2016, the police arrested an army lance-corporal for joking about a bomb in his luggage.
The then Kuching police chief Assistant Commissioner Abang Ahmad Abang Julai said the 25-year-old soldier told an airline employee that he had a bomb in his luggage when checking in for a flight to Kota Bharu.
The man had five bags to check in and when asked about the content of the third one, he
said that there was a bomb in it which he would use to blow up the aircraft.
When questioned by the police, he said he was only joking. Regardless, the police inspected his luggage thoroughly and found no bomb inside.
Then in May this year, a flight had to be cancelled after a 28-year-old man who was about to fly to Kuala Lumpur jokingly said he had a bomb. The airport police were called and he was arrested.
