Sri ​Lankan passenger who created bomb scare .... imposed 12 year jail sentence!

​Sri ​Lankan passenger who created bomb scare ....

imposed 12 year jail sentence!

The court case with regard to the Sri Lankan who created a bomb scare within the flight MH 128 flying from Melbourne, Australia to Malaysia on the night of May 31st last year came to an end and he was sentenced to jail for 12 years.

2 year old Manod Mark had tried to gain access to the cockpit of the plane MH 128 belonging to Malaysian Airlines which was heading towards Kuala Lumpur in the month of May last year and had

made an attempt to manouvre the plane to return to Melbourne. He had attempted all this by saying that he was in possession of a bomb. However, when checked it was exposed that he had displayed only a power bank which is utilised to charge a mobile phone and had thus created a false fright among passengers.

The case was heard on the accusation that he was responsible for for a loss by making the plane return to Melbourne thus subjecting the life of passengers to a great risk of life because of a mental derangement resulting from use of illegal drugs. There had been about 300 passengers on board the said flight, it was reported. This piece of news that a Sri Lankan passenger on board the flight MH 128 which was heading from Australia to Malaysia had created this stupid act in fact became the main news item in all prominent media around the world those days. As a consequence this incident ended up with the name of Sri Lanka as well as a majority of Sri Lankans living in Australia being tarnished.

The person responsible for this incident was a Sri Lankan by the name of Manod M. Marks who was living in Dandenong in Australia under a student visa. Though it was initially surveyed that he had resorted to this act under intoxication, it was later confirmed that he actually was subjected to a form of mental aberration being addicted to narcotics. He had also tried to scrape through the court case by indicating that he had been at the last time been taking treatment from Monash Medical Centre hospital.

About thirty minutes after the flight took off he had displayed an instrument with a battery inserted in it near him shouting, "I've got a bomb and I'm going to f***ing blow the plane up", thus putting the passengers into a fright for nothing and had then threatened saying that he wanted to get into the cockpit. The staff members had then taken action at that moment and brought him under control preventing him after which he had collapsed. In the process the flight had returned and subsequently the security forces had arrested him without any difficulty as such. It was thereafter revealed that the bomb story in fact was just a hoax.

A former Australian footballer and his fiancee had been on board the flight and since their testimonies too were published, this news became even more popular. Thus this news hit the headlines in all leading newspapers around the globe at that time and it was mostly  interpreted in reports as 'A ludicrous act of a Sri Lankan lunatic".

He was finally imposed a 12 year jail term according to the Federal Law of Australia under the charges of inconveniencing passengers, causing a false sense of fright and influencing cancellation of the flight. This is considered as the first instance when a person is sentenced to jail for having hijacked a plane.