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Man who caused bomb scare inside Kenya Airways plane jailed

By Amina Wako August 28th, 2019 1 min read

An Ethiopian man has been sentenced to four months in prison or a Sh100,000 fine for raising a false alarm in a Johannesburg-bound Kenya Airways plane in April forcing the flight to abort take off.

Chifraye Bekele’s false alarm led to a three-hour shutdown of the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA).

Bekele was found guilty of “imperiling the safety of aircraft and persons on board” by Magistrate Christine Njagi.

The passenger is said to have mentioned the word ‘bomb’ during an argument, causing a scare in the plane which was taxing ready for take-off.

All the passengers had to disembark from the plane resulting in the cancellation of the flight.

The man was immediately handed over to the Anti-Terror Police Unit for interrogation.

Bekele was taken into custody and has been in prison since then.

While testifying in court via a translator, he said he did not make the joke as he only spoke Amharic and not English.