Bulgarian Tried by Australian Court for Storing Skyjacking Manuals

A Bulgarian studying to become a pilot in Melbourne has narrowly escaped a conviction on charges of storing terrorism manuals on his computers. Photo by theage.com.au

A Bulgarian studying in Australia to become a commercial pilot was found to store manuals on aircraft hijacking, cyber terrorism and bomb-making on his personal computer.

According t o Australian website theage.com.au, on January 10, 2010, 22-year-old Yasen Jweinat, a Bulgarian citizen resident in the United Arab Emirates, was stopped to have his luggage examined by customs officers at the Melbourne Airport, upon which they found files titled ''Illegal Collection'' with instructions for identity fraud, disengaging electromagnetic door locks and techniques for killing humans.

Apart from that, the airport authorities also found two "graphic" pictures, one of which showed an armed man holding a decapitated head.

Jweinat pleaded guilty on two counts, including  importing a prohibited item into Australia, and appealed a sentence of a conviction and 200 hours of unpaid community work.

His barrister, Peter Lange, told Judge Chris O'Neill that his client had acted immature and had engaged in adolescent behaviour without a sinister motive.

Lange insisted that a conviction could jeopardize Jweinat's sentence chances of finding a job as a pilot after graduating from the Australian National Airline College.

The Bulgarian said in court that the suspicious documents had been downloaded by a friend of his before he arrived in Australia in 2009 to study for a pilot.

He admitted that he had viewed the files "out of curiosity" but had not deleted them because he had never thought they would turn into such a big problem.

Judge Chris O'Neil concluded that the young man had had no intentions to incite crimes through the materials, qualifying his act as "was stupid, immature and thoughtless".

Jweinat was released on a USD 1000 two-year bond without conviction and had to pay USD 15 000 in court expenses.

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