Pseudo-bomber from Maladzechna wants to frame his friend

Police have arrested a man suspected of making hoax bomb threats to general education schools in Maladzyechna, a city of some 100,000 residents in the Minsk region.

The suspect, a 30-year-old employee of a construction firm in Maladzyechna with no previous convictions, made the threats for the purpose of setting up an innocent Maladzyechna man in order to make him look guilty after coming into “hostile relations” with him, according to a joint statement from the Investigative Committee and the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Students and teachers were evacuated from 10 general education schools in Maladzyechna on the afternoon of September 5 after the headmasters received letters saying that a bomb would explode in the school building unless $10,000 was transferred to a specified electronic purse.

Bomb disposal squads thoroughly examined the buildings but did not find any explosives.

The e-purse contained data pointing to the other man as the holder.

The perpetrator’s actions derived from mere motives of revenge and were not aimed at disrupting the educational process at the schools, the statement says.

The man has been charged with reporting knowingly false information about danger under Part Two of the Criminal Code's Article 340 and may be sentenced to up seven years in prison.