A Spanish court has acquitted a British man who joked about blowing up a flight from London Gatwick to Menorca, ruling that he did not intend to cause public distress. Aditya Verma, now 20, admitted sending a message to friends on Snapchat in July 2022 saying: 'On my way to blow up the plane. I'm a member of the Taliban.'
The message, sent in a private group chat, was intercepted by UK security services and flagged to Spanish authorities while the easyJet plane was in the air. Two Spanish F-18 fighter jets were scrambled to escort the aircraft, which was searched upon landing at Menorca. Verma, then 18, was arrested and held in a police cell for two days before being released on bail.
At his trial on Monday at Madrid's National Court, the judge ruled that 'no explosive... was found that would lead one to believe it was a real threat.' The verdict noted that the message was made 'in a strictly private environment between the accused and his friends' and that Verma 'could not even remotely assume... that the joke... could be intercepted or detected by the British services.'
If found guilty, Verma, from Orpington, Kent, could have faced a fine of up to €22,500 (£19,300) plus €95,000 to cover the cost of the jets. The judge's resolution, cited by Europa Press, said it was unclear how UK authorities were alerted, as the message was sent via encrypted Snapchat. A theory that Gatwick's Wi-Fi intercepted it was dismissed by the airport.
Snapchat declined to comment on the case. The platform states it works with law enforcement on imminent threats, but the judge noted that the alert mechanism 'was not the subject of evidence in this trial.'
