Estonian court gives shock jail sentence to man who threatened to blow up plane

  • 2017-03-14
  • BNS/TBT Staff

TALLINN - The Tallinn-based Harju County Court on Tuesday handed down shock incarceration to a 33-year-old man who made phone calls to the Tallinn airport and the Internal Security Service (ISS) last summer threatening to blow up a passenger plane bound for Germany.

The court, which handled the case in an agreement procedure, found Vladislav Palling, 33, guilty of grave breach of public order by threatening to use an explosive device and handed him a sentence of two years and six months in jail. Four months of the sentence is not conditional, and the rest conditional with a probation period of three years and six months.

Palling started serving his sentence when he was detained on Feb. 2.

Palling made phone calls to the Tallinn airport and the ISS at about 2 a.m. on July 25, presenting himself as a member of Daesh and declaring that he intends to blow up a plane heading from Tallinn to Germany during the next week. Palling made the threat in English from an Estonian telephone number.

Immediately after the call, the police checked the security of outgoing flights at the airport but found no indication of a terrorist threat. Locating the suspect was difficult because the suspect had done everything to conceal his identity and the call was made from an area where there were many people at the time.

According to Postimees, Palling has been trying to attract public attention for years by sending messages to Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump. Posing as a citizen of Estonia, the author of the messages has been asking the Russian and U.S. leaders to prevent incitement of military conflict in Estonia by NATO because he doesn't wish to see his hometown Tallinn in ruins.