Retired police officer held over fake bomb on plane

An Air France flight from Mauritius to Paris made an emergency landing at an airport in Mombasa, Kenya following a bomb scare on Sunday, December 20. All passengers were evacuated using emergency slides and were given hotel accommodations for the night.

The prosecutors gave no details about the man taken into custody, though BFM TV said he was a former police officer and had been detained on arrival in Paris.

Airports are powerless to stop passengers from smuggling on board the kind of fake bombs that sparked this weekend’s major security alert on an Air France flight, flight safety experts have warned. It is part of an investigation prompted by a lawsuit by Air France for reckless endangerment.

France has remained on high alert regarding terrorist activity since the attacks of Nov 13 by Islamic extremists led to the death of 130 people.

One passenger is now in police custody for his suspected involvement in planting a fake bomb, the public prosecution service in the Parisian suburb of Bobigny confirmed on Monday. The lawsuit doesn’t name a perpetrator still leaves it to investigators to determine who might eventually be sent to trial.

“We have ensured that all the passengers stranded on Sunday at the Moi International Airport in Mombasa have gotten in flights back to their country”, said Nkaissery.

The bomb scare Sunday was the fourth such hoax against Air France in recent weeks.

There had been no security failure by Mauritian airport authorities, because the item contained no explosives and was not something that would be picked up in screening. “Because of the speed of the airplane going down, we thought we would crash in the sea”, said passenger Marine Gorlier to the Associated Press. The same Islamic group also claimed responsibility for shooting down a plane in October which was flying through Egypt with Russian tourists.

Two Air France flights from the U.S.to Paris were diverted on November 17 after bomb threats were received. Authorities are scrutinizing phone records in relation to all three incidents.