The young man accused of public disorder defended himself in Spain’s National Court saying it was a joke.
In the summer of 2022, Aditya V. was about to board a flight to the Spanish island of Menorca at London’s Gatwick Airport.
Just before boarding, the young British man decided to send photos of the check-in area to seven of his friends via the social network Snapchat. The pictures included a phrase he had written himself: “On my way to blow up the plane, I’m a member of the Taliban”.
British intelligence discovered the message when the plane was already over France and decided to alert Spain, as the flight was due to land on the Spanish island.
The Ministry of Defence sent a Eurofighter to escort the plane, believing the passenger to be a terrorist.
On Monday, the young man defended himself in Spain’s National Court, accused of public disorder and facing a lawsuit from the Spanish Ministry of Defence demanding that he pay the €94,782.47 it cost to send 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 could see the Eurofighter from the window of the plane, but that he never thought it was there because of the message he sent, thinking it was a training exercise for the war in Ukraine.
With the help of an interpreter, the young man was able to tell his side of the story. He insisted that he never thought the prank would go so far, and that he had only shared the picture with his group of friends.
The problem was that one of his friends was connected to the airport’s public Wi-Fi, so the photo ended up with British intelligence.
"The prosecutor asked the young man: “Did you never think that you could cause fear?”
The Spanish Penal Code states that a person who “falsely simulates a situation of danger to the community” that requires assistance from the police or emergency services “shall be punished”.
After Monday’s testimonies, the trial was scheduled for sentencing.
The problem was that one of his friends was connected to the airport’s public Wi-Fi, so the photo ended up with British intelligence.
This doesn’t make sense at all, it all goes over encrypted connections, the airport’s wifi doesn’t act as a hoover for data, they can’t decrypt it without the private keys. Muuuuch more likely is that Snapchat cooperates with Five Eye’s intelligence, apparently screening private chats for key phrases and forwarding them on to governments.
While it’s possible, it also would mean Snapchat is sending updates every few hours. I can almost guarantee the wifi is being intercepted at airports and that DRTboxes are deployed instead of full cell towers to also sniff traffic.
Or it could be both. Regardless, making poorly timed terrorist jokes at an airport is generally bad form.
This article states that they do not encrypt their group chats with E2E encryption. So they might be able to.
But it is 2,5 years old, so I am not sure about the accuracy.
https://stealthoptional.com/news/is-snapchat-encrypted-how-secure-is-snapchat-messaging/
No E2E encryption means that Snapchat can read the messages. They still have standard, non-E2E encryption, meaning they cannot be read by the Wi-Fi network.
"The prosecutor asked the young man: “Did you never think that you could cause fear?”
I’d imagine my answer would be: “Not for a second did I think it would cause fear. It was a private message to my 7 close friends that know that I am not a terrorist. Mr Prosecutor, did you not think for a second that people would call you a pervert because of the pictures you search for on the internet at night? I wouldn’t think so because you’re not broadcasting that in any public conversation. I wasn’t either.”
So you believed until you saw this story, that it’s safe to plan terror attacks on social platforms as long as you only use personal messages?
I mean, I agree with him?
He didn’t create an environment of fear - he sent a picture to his friend. No one but intelligence services even knew what was happening, including the person who sent it. Putting a Warplane up to escort a plane was an over reaction and pointless - whats it going to do?
The warfighter wouldn’t be able to save the plane, but it would be able to scuttle it with missiles if the idiot was actually trying to hijack and crash the plane like 9/11.
Hindsight is 20/20, but if thousands died because someone in intelligence brushed off a social media post as joke, there would be a ton of justifiably angry people.
The dude is an idiot either way, though, lol.
Idiot - absolutely.
94k euro idiot - no.
And who the hell downvoted you for raising a reasonable point?
No, the dude isn’t an idiot. We have an assumption to a right to privacy in the UK. That privacy was invaded and worse still he’s being laden with the charge for the invasion.
Either we need to accept that there is a cost to counter-terrorism operations including those of false positives, or we in essence let the terrorists win by allowing them to force us into a perpetual state of terror - i.e. where we live and act in a constant state of fear of the potential of a terror act.
Yes, you do have a right to privacy in your own home.
You don’t, however, have a right to privacy in public places, using public services (like wifi), or using a corporations program and applications that have legal responsibilities - bet if he was done sending kiddie porn over tik tok no one would be going on about it being a private conversation.
Person made a stupid mistake that was perfectly funny in their own friends group, and the environment of over reaction took it from there - because we would all be screaming at security forces if it was an actual threat that was ignored.
Hindsight is 20/20, but if thousands died because someone in intelligence brushed off a social media post as joke, there would be a ton of justifiably angry people.
I don’t think anyone has a complaint with them scrambling the jet. The complaint is taking the young man to court and laying the bill for the jet flight at the feet of a young man to pay for their overreaction.
Well they’d shoot it down.
I’d laugh, but there are numerous examples here in the US of cops shooting people who were threatening to commit suicide
Shooting down a plane threatening to blow itself up doesn’t help anything.
Only thing it will change is if they decided to 9/11 themselves instead.
Would it be out of the environment?
he had only shared the picture with his group of friends.
via the social network Snapchat.
Oh boy, that’s so insanely naive and stupid, I’m at loss for words. Social networks are monitored for very obvious reasons. We have so many laws passed for the past 2 decades, that are made specifically for this. Especially UK (compared to Europe) that were always a bit beyond what is legal in EU.
So contrary to most here, I’d say he fucked up badly. There are things you cannot joke about.Or maybbbeeee we should expect more diligence from our state apparatus than one single message.
It’s ridiculous to try and charge a person for what amounts to a police over reaction.
Should the Twitch streamer get the charge for being SWATed because they pissed off the troll in their channel?
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The young man accused of public disorder defended himself in Spain’s National Court saying it was a joke.
Just before boarding, the young British man decided to send photos of the check-in area to seven of his friends via the social network Snapchat.
British intelligence discovered the message when the plane was already over France and decided to alert Spain, as the flight was due to land on the Spanish island.
On Monday, the young man defended himself in Spain’s National Court, accused of public disorder and facing a lawsuit from the Spanish Ministry of Defence demanding that he pay the €94,782.47 it cost to send the Eurofighter.
According to El Español, the young man explained that he could see the Eurofighter from the window of the plane, but that he never thought it was there because of the message he sent, thinking it was a training exercise for the war in Ukraine.
The Spanish Penal Code states that a person who “falsely simulates a situation of danger to the community” that requires assistance from the police or emergency services “shall be punished”.
The original article contains 365 words, the summary contains 183 words. Saved 50%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
