Man fails in appeal against bomb hoax conviction

A self-styled Scottish separatist has failed in an appeal against his conviction for sending two hoax bomb threats against transatlantic flights departing from the United Kingdom.

Adam Busby (aged 63) received a four-year sentence in July last year after a Dublin Circuit Criminal Court jury found him guilty of causing annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety by sending emails to the British Airports Authority claiming bombs were on two flights to New York.

Busby sent the emails, purportedly from the Scottish National Liberation Army, using a computer terminal at Charleville Mall Public Library, North Strand, Dublin on May 8th and May 15 2006.

Judge Desmond Hogan suspended the last two years of the sentence having regard to the fact that Busby suffers with multiple sclerosis and is wheelchair bound.

At the Court of Criminal Appeal this afternoon counsel for Busby, Mr Peter Finlay SC, argued that his client’s conviction was unsafe as emails were not covered by the definition of an offensive communication sent via the telecommunications system as recorded in Irish law.

He said that electronic mailing was not in contemplation when the definition of a telecommunications system was inserted in to the Statute and that it was necessary to specifically define what type of messaging comes under the term “telecommunications system”.

Mr Dominic McGinn SC, for the State, told the court that the wording of the law should not be strictly construed and that the words of should be given their ordinary meaning under the rules of “ordinary interpretation”.

He submitted that evidence had been adduced at trial that every message sent by email had to be sent via the telecommunications system and that it was clear an email was a type of message.

Presiding judge Mr Justice Adrian Hardiman said the court had “no doubt” that the ordinary meaning of the word email was a telecommunications message and that this was consistent with the offence as described in the indictment.

During the trial the court heard that other threats and acts of terrorism claimed in the name of the SNLA originated in Ireland since Busby arrived here in 1980 but that he was not facing charges or extradition in relation to these. They include threatening the water supply in Manchester and sending vodka bottles laced with caustic soda to politicians and journalists in the Britain.

The court heard that the Scottish National Liberation Army was founded in 1980 with the aim of “using coercive intimidation to further the cause of Scottish independence”.

Busby was convicted by the Special Criminal Court in 1997 and sentenced to two years for making threatening phone calls to the Press Association in Scotland and the Scottish Daily Record newspaper.