Woman sentenced over bomb threat at Geneva airport

Geneva is Switzerland's second international airport Keystone

A French woman faces up to six months in prison for calling in a false bomb threat at the Geneva airport.

The 41-year-old mother of four phoned the airport on Tuesday evening with an anonymous security tip. She claimed there was a person with a bomb headed for the French sector of the airport.

Extra security checks were imposed. Police and other security forces armed with machine guns patrolled the airport. Some access points were blocked. Systematic ID checks were carried out at two open entrances. By Wednesday afternoon, however, authorities announced it was a false alarm.

The Swiss and French authorities determined that the caller was a woman who was jealous of her husband’s alleged mistress, and opened a criminal case against her.

The woman, appearing before a court in Annecy, France on Thursday, explained she was out for revenge against another woman who she believed was having an affair with her husband. Married for 22 years, the woman said she did not think about the consequences when she phoned in a false bomb threat.

She had called with a fake, anonymous tip that another woman, her feared rival, would appear at the airport with two children, a bomb and money. Her husband, who showed up at court with two of their children, denied he was having an affair.

Annecy prosecutor Eric Maillaud recommended a six-month prison sentence, saying the incidence had cost hundreds of thousands of euros, inconvenienced and made anxious some 13,000 travellers that day. The court agreed to the recommendation, saying she must serve at least three months in prison.

Meanwhile, the Federal Intelligence ServiceExternal link said the recent terrorist attacks in France and Germany confirmed its general security assessment published last November.

The four attacks, carried out over the past two weeks, show the growing risk of violent incidents in Europe, according to a spokeswoman.