This article was originally published in English
The young man accused of public disorder defended himself before the Spanish judiciary by saying that it was a “joke”.
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In the summer of 2022, Aditya V. was about to board a flight to the Spanish island of Menorca at London's Gatwick Airport. Shortly before boarding, the young Brit decided to send photos of the check-in area to seven friends via the social network Snapchat. The pictures showed a sentence that he had written himself: “I will blow up the plane, I am a member of the Taliban.”
British intelligence discovered the message when the plane was already flying over France and decided to alert Spain as the plane was scheduled to land on the Spanish island. The Ministry of Defense sent one Eurofighter to escort the plane because they believed the passenger was a terrorist.
On Monday the young man defended himself before the Spanish National Court. He was accused of public disorder and faced a lawsuit from Spain's Defense Ministry demanding that he foot the bill 94,782.47 Euro corresponding to the shipping of the Eurofighter**.**
“It was a joke,” he defended himself before the judge, explaining that he did it because his friends “always made fun of him because of his Pakistani features.”
According to El Español, the young man explained that he saw the Eurofighter from the window of the plane, but that he never thought that it was a training exercise for the war in Ukraine because of the message he sent.
With the help of an interpreter, the young man was able to tell his side of the story. He insisted he never thought so Joke could have had such serious consequences and that he had only shared the photo with his circle of friends.
The problem was that one of his friends was connected to the airport's public Wi-Fi and the photo ended up in the hands of the British secret services.