Singaporean charged over bomb threats he allegedly sent to two Taiwanese politicians
A Singaporean man has been charged over bomb threats he sent to two Taiwanese politicians via Facebook messenger.
Loo Peng Seng, 53, was on March 26 handed four charges of communicating false information of a harmful thing.
He had allegedly sent the threats to Mr Lo Chih-chiang and Mr Han Kuo-yu, who are members of Taiwan’s Kuomintang party.
Loo allegedly sent four messages to them over three days in 2024 that contained references to the presence of a bomb, despite knowing them to be false.
According to court documents, he allegedly sent a message to Mr Lo on Feb 28 which stated: “I will go to use the bombs to blow you up to pieces.”
He is said to have sent another message to him on March 1, stating: “Mr Lo Chih Chiang, I am going to bomb your home. And I have a lot of bombs to bomb the Legislative Yuan building.”
The building houses the legislative organ of Taiwan.
He purportedly also sent a message to Mr Han on Feb 28, writing: “Han Guo Yu, I am going to bring a lot of bombs to put in your car or home.”
He sent another message to him on Feb 29 that stated: “Han Guo Yu, I am going to make sure I will also blow you up your family members with car bombs.”
The police were alerted and Loo was arrested on March 4.
In a statement on March 25, the police said a member of the public had seen a post on Facebook by a public figure based overseas who indicated that he had received bomb threats from someone claiming to be from Singapore.
Officers from Bedok Police Division established Loo’s identity and arrested him within 12 hours of the report.
Loo was remanded at the Institute of Mental Health for a medical examination.
He will return to court on April 9.
For each charge Loo faces, he can be jailed for up to seven years, fined up to $50,000, or both.
In a previous case, a 30-year-old Australian man was sentenced to six months’ jail in December over a fake bomb threat that caused a Scoot flight to make a U-turn back to Singapore in October 2023.
It happened just months after a series of bomb threats in August 2023 at 18 locations in Singapore, including the Environment Building that houses the Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment, and other government agencies.
The police found no items of security concern at any of the locations.
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