Australia proposes penalty of 10 years in jail for those who threaten to bomb planes, airports

Australian bomb hoaxers could face decade in jail

SYDNEY — People who falsely claim a bomb is on board a plane or at an airport could be jailed for up to 10 years under tough new Australian legislation announced Monday.

The proposed penalty is a sharp increase over the current maximum punishment of two years, and was prompted by a foiled plot to blow up a Detroit-bound plane on Christmas Day in the United States, Home Affairs Minister Brendan O’Connor said.

That flight “focused like-minded countries about the potential threat of hoaxes and indeed of terrorist acts,” O’Connor told reporters in Melbourne. “And we need to make sure that our laws are capable of not only deterring those crimes, but properly prosecuting those crimes if they take effect.”

In the Christmas Day plot, a bomb failed to detonate aboard a Detroit-bound airliner. FBI agents soon arrested Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and charged him with the attempted attack.

The legislation also calls for raising the maximum penalty for damaging a runway or air traffic control facility from 10 years to 14 years in jail. And it proposes increasing the maximum penalty for assaulting a pilot or endangering an aircraft from 15 years to 20 years.

Those who hijack or destroy a plane would still face a maximum of life in prison.

“These crimes cause great distress and inconvenience and impose unnecessary costs on the industry,” O’Connor said. “Threats and hoaxes can also compromise public safety — for example, where a flight has to be diverted at short notice or where an airport needs to be evacuated suddenly.”

The legislation will be introduced to Parliament in the next two weeks.