A British man accused of public disorder after joking about blowing up a flight has gone on trial in Spain.
Aditya Verma made the comment on Snapchat on his way to the island of Menorca with friends in July 2022.
The message, sent before Mr Verma departed Gatwick airport, read: “On my way to blow up the plane (I’m a member of the Taliban).” Mr Verma told a Madrid court on Monday: “The intention was never to cause public distress or cause public harm.”
If found guilty, the university student faces a hefty bill for expenses after two Spanish Air Force jets were scrambled.
Mr Verma’s message was picked up by the UK security services who flagged it to Spanish authorities while the easyJet plane was still in the air.
A court in Madrid heard it was assumed the message triggered alarm bells after being picked up via Gatwick’s Wi-Fi network.
Appearing in court on Monday, Mr Verma - who is now studying economics at Bath University - said the message was “a joke in a private group setting”.
“It was just sent to my friends I was travelling with on the day,” he said. Pressed about the purpose of the message, Mr Verma said: “Since school, it’s been a joke because of my features… It was just to make people laugh.”
So no one involved in the private Snapchat message reported this to Spanish authorities, the UK government intercepted private communications, read it, and misinterpreted a private joke as real threat.
Just imagine how western media reporting on this if it happened in China.
I just realised they called it a hoax rather than a joke. The joke was said in private company, nobody was expected to be fooled, it’s not a hoax.
The hoax is privacy laws in liberal countries.
Exactly, everybody in the conversation knew this was a joke. There was no intent to do harm or to fool the public. The whole case is nonsense.
It’s so “literally 1984” that citizens are expected to know that their private conversations are watched and can make authorities lose money if they react to it. You can’t make this shit up
If the student isn’t heavily prosecuted, there’s going to be a tiktok trend of doing this to your mate’s phone when they’re not looking.
I had a guy joke at work today – he pointed to his friend who had liquor and said “psst, that’s Bin Laden’s son”.
I looked between them and said “Oh my god, I’m such a fan of your father’s work!”
Inb4 joke police storm my apartment and kill me
LMFAO
British boy look out… Your swag is too different… your posts are too fire…
kill me
you mean recruit you into doing domestic terrorism to justify their own existence
In case you were ever wondering if Snapchat is to be trusted with your privacy.
Love the idea that MI5 or whatever, thinks the first thing a terrorist would so before an attack would be post about it to their friends.
Got this image in my head of some grindbro terrorist posting a selfie in front of a huge pile of people he killed, and being roasted in the comments by his mates 'cos they counted the fingers and clocked it as an AI deepfake.
I am sure that plenty of ordinary British citizens are grateful that their tax dollars are going to efforts like this.
After all, the United Kingdom is a democracy. That must mean that one day everybody voted on being monitored.
True but this is probably Snapchat’s internal law enforcement compliance unit SnapLion. Wait what am I saying, that means the same thing
is not privacy violation if a capitalist country does it!
Then it’s just sparkling security.
So someone makes an obvious joke in a private chat about blowing up a plane, then the authorities launch fighter jets to do what exactly? What were the jets for? Were they going to blow up the plane to prevent a terrorist blowing up the plane?
Perhaps the entire scenario was run by an a series of algorithms - from flagging the text in the group chat right through to the scramble jets order, with no human at any point reading anything and taking a moment to think about what it actually meant or what the implications really were. Maybe we can add an AI commanded NATO Air Force to the list of shit this article has inadvertently leaked.
Were they going to blow up the plane to prevent a terrorist blowing up the plane?
Yes, but the jets would’ve made sure the plane fell on a major city to justify increasing the military, policing, and border budget.
I guess they were there just incase the plane was hijacked. But doesn’t make sense because they could ask the cockpit about that directly.
“Uhhhh control tower, why are there two fighter planes flanking me???”
lol right, like none of this makes sense
This entire thing is insane, the UK monitors another country’s internet traffic and private messages, and thinks it can prosecute a man because of an obvious joke made in private i mean are ANY journalists able to point out how batshit insane this entire thing is? Are journalists this fucking incompetent now? I’m going to lose my god damn mind
This is blatant abuse of power by the state, and the fact that it’s being presented as a totally reasonable thing is absolutely mind blowing.
would be a good thing if anglos had their actual minds blown, violently, and permanently.
Careful, the U.K. security services are probably reading these replies. They might arrest you for ‘inciting genocide’.
yes, i wish all westerners would die, now please send one of your shitty DRM locked jets to my appartment. Hopefully the license runs out midflight and it crashes through my window and kills me, that way i wont have to read those stupid headlines anymore.
