Fake bomb threat: 15-year-old summoned to court in April

Europe 1 with AFP // Photo credits: Loïc Venance/AFP 9:21 a.m., January 29, 2024

A 15-year-old minor, arrested following a false bomb threat in a high school in Rouen, will appear on April 9 before the children's court, the Rouen prosecutor's office announced on Sunday. The teenager was arrested on Thursday, after the opening of a procedure "following a false bomb threat" by email, on January 22, at the Lycée Blaise Pascal in Rouen. The person concerned, living in the Rouen metropolitan area, “admitted to being the author of this false alarm,” said the Rouen public prosecutor, Frédéric Teillet, in a press release.

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“Disclosure of false information”

“The search carried out at his home also made it possible to establish that this young man was interested on the internet in the manufacture” of explosives of which he had acquired various components with a view to manufacturing detonators, indicates the magistrate. “These products, as well as bladed weapons, were seized from his home. However, it has not been established, at this stage, any desire to manufacture and even less to use an explosive device,” underlines the prosecutor. The teenager will appear in particular for "possession without legitimate reason of an explosive substance or product" as well as for "disclosure of false information in order to make people believe in dangerous destruction".

While waiting for the hearing, the minor was imposed "an educational placement within the framework of a provisional judicial educational measure", indicates the prosecutor, specifying that the person concerned "was not legally capable of see the imposition of judicial control in view of his age, the absence of a prior record and the nature of the offenses alleged. In recent months, several minors have been the subject of suspicion of false bomb threats.