Bomb Threats at the Airport: Unlawful Interference under International Law and the Maldives Civil Aviation Regulations

Introduction

On 19 September 2026 it was reported that a foreign tourist had been arrested at Velana International Airport and remanded in custody for five days after telling airport security officers, when they attempted to check his relative's bag at screening, that the bag contained a bomb. He told the court that the remark was a joke.(1)

The case illustrates how the international aviation security regime, the Civil Aviation Regulations and the general criminal law fit together, and where the gaps lie.

Annex 17 and the meaning of unlawful interference

The Maldives ratified the Convention on International Civil Aviation (the Chicago Convention 1944) on 12 March 1974. Under Article 37 of the convention, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) adopts international standards and recommended practices, and Annex 17 to the convention contains the standards on security. Annex 17 requires each contracting state to establish a national civil aviation security programme, to designate an authority responsible for it, to screen passengers and cabin baggage before boarding, and to respond to and report acts of unlawful interference.

Annex 17 defines acts of unlawful interference as acts or attempted acts which jeopardise the safety of civil aviation. The definition is not confined to hijacking and sabotage. It expressly includes the communication of false information which jeopardises the safety of an aircraft in flight or on the ground, or of passengers, crew, ground personnel or the general public at an airport or on the premises of a civil aviation facility. A bomb hoax at a screening point is therefore an act of unlawful interference in the sense used by ICAO, whether or not the person making it intends any harm, and airports treat every such remark as a genuine threat until it has been assessed and cleared.

The aviation security conventions

The Maldives is a party to the Montreal Convention 1971 on unlawful acts against the safety of civil aviation, which it ratified on 1 September 1987, and to its 1988 protocol on violence at airports, which it ratified on 22 March 1999. Article 1(1)(e) of the Montreal Convention makes it an offence to communicate information which the person knows to be false, thereby endangering the safety of an aircraft in flight. The offence requires that an aircraft in flight is in fact endangered. A false statement made at a screening point before boarding, about a bag which has not been loaded, will not usually satisfy that condition. The 1988 protocol covers acts of violence at airports serving international civil aviation which cause or are likely to cause serious injury or death, and the destruction of airport facilities, but not a hoax.

The Beijing Convention 2010, which replaces the Montreal Convention 1971 as between its parties, goes further. Under Article 1(3), it is an offence to make a threat to commit any of the principal offences, or to cause another person to receive such a threat, where the circumstances indicate that the threat is credible. The Maldives has not acceded to the Beijing Convention. Even under that convention, a hoax which no reasonable person would treat as credible would fall outside the offence. The Tokyo Convention 1963, which the Maldives ratified on 28 September 1987, applies only to acts committed on board an aircraft in flight and has no application to conduct at a screening point.

The position under the conventions is therefore that a bomb hoax at an airport, as distinct from a genuine threat or a hoax which endangers an aircraft in flight, is left to the national law of the state concerned. Many states have enacted a specific offence of communicating a bomb hoax, and ICAO's model legislation on unruly and disruptive passengers, published in Circular 288, recommends specific offences for disruptive conduct on board aircraft.

The Maldives Civil Aviation Regulations and criminal law

Section 17 of the Civil Aviation Act (Law No: 2/2001) requires the regulator to establish civil aviation security procedures and provides that the standards adopted must not be lower than those of the international conventions to which the Maldives is a party. Under Section 25 of the act and Section 5 of the Maldives Civil Aviation Authority Act (Law No: 2/2012), the Civil Aviation Authority is responsible for making the regulations required by those conventions.

Because the aviation regulations contain no offence which fits the facts, the police have proceeded under the general criminal law. The Penal Code (Law No: 9/2014) deals with assault, endangerment and threats in Chapter 120, which includes an offence of making threats and false alarms, and with false reports to law enforcement and false alarms to public safety agencies in Chapter 520. Section 4 of the Prohibition of Intimidation and Possession of Dangerous Weapons and Sharp Objects Act makes it an offence, punishable with six to 18 months' imprisonment, to threaten a person with death or serious bodily harm. Under Section 13 of the Penal Code, the code applies to conduct in the territory of the Maldives and on board aircraft registered in the Maldives, so there is no doubt about jurisdiction over conduct at the airport.

Comment

The Maldives has the screening and reporting framework which Annex 17 requires. What it does not have is an aviation-specific offence covering false statements about threats to aircraft or airports, or disruptive conduct at screening points. Whether a remark which the speaker says was a joke amounts to a threat or a false alarm under the Penal Code is a question of proof in each case, and the offences do not reflect the consequences of a security incident at an airport.

The Civil Aviation Act or a dedicated aviation offences regulation could create specific offences, drawing on ICAO Circular 288 (Guidance Material on the Legal Aspects of Unruly/Disruptive Passengers) and on the bomb hoax offences found in other Commonwealth jurisdictions, covering false statements about bombs or other threats at an airport or on board an aircraft, refusal to submit to screening, and interference with security officers, with penalties that reflect the disruption caused and a right for the airport or operator to recover its costs. This would give the Aviation Security Command and the police a clear legal basis for action, and would give passengers, including foreign visitors, fair notice that such remarks are treated as criminal in the Maldives as they are elsewhere.

Endnotes

(1) Sun Online, 19 September 2026, "Egyptian tourist remanded for joking about having a bomb at VIA".

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Mr. Ahmed Murad, Senior Partner

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