Airport bomb threat hoax to avoid deportation

A Pakistani man has forced one British airport to be closed and three more placed on high alert after phoning in a bomb threat which warned of suicide attacks.

27-year-old Salman Mukaty was an asylum seeker who was seeking to prevent his deportation back to Pakistan after having lived in Britain for over 9 years. His reaction was to advise authorities that a team of some 16 heavily armed suicide bombers were planning on action across the country. The group were supposedly posing as passengers and were about to board flights.

The calls led to the closure of the Leeds-Bradford airport and Manchester, Birmingham and Heathrow airports were all placed on red alert.

The events of the March incident were unfolded at the Reading Crown Court this week, one where the prosecution claimed that the series of calls made by Mukaty were the most horrific threat conceivable. The court also learned that Mukaty believed that he would be spared deportation as he would be regarded as a security risk by authorities.

Mukaty has claimed that he was acting on a tip-off from a man called Arif Khan but his story was dismissed by the prosecution for being a self-serving attempt to show his value to authorites ahead of his deportation.

The Karachi born Mukaty said that Khan was a friend who had links to extremist organisations in Afghanistan and Pakistan.