A knife-wielding suicidal man chased his estranged wife through an airport terminal in Brisbane, Australia with a fake bomb as part of an ongoing bitter custody battle over their children.
Gamal Elsaied Elboushi is in a heap of trouble. The 50-year-old Egyptian national forced an evacuation of Brisbane Airpot earlier this year after slipping past security with a knife and a homemade device which closely resembled a bomb.
As Elboushi’s wife and children attempted to (legally) separate from Elboushi, he could not take it and followed them to the airport. Once past security, he confronted his estranged wife, pulled out the fake bomb, claimed it contained C-4, and then threatened to stab himself up in front of her and the kids unless she agreed to let him take the children to Egypt.
Airport police surrounded him, but he ordered everyone to back off, warning that his bomb had a blast radius fo 500 meters. Simultaneously, he pleaded with security officials to shoot him.
Thankfully, one police officer spoke Arabic and was able to defuse the situation. Elboushi was calmed to a point in which he could be shot with “bean bag rounds” that stopped him but were not lethal.
Now Elboushi faces a number of charges, including:
- Stealing a number plate from a government vehicle (no further details on that)
- Assault of a police officer
- Falsely making bomb threats
- Stalking
Calling him an “unacceptable risk”, a magistrate judge refused to grant bail, adding that nothing short of keeping in jail “would restrain his feeling of narcissistic self- entitlement”. She added:
They are a compelling set of facts as to his belief as to his entitlement to this behavior, without any regard to any other people, his family, other members of the traveling public.
CONCLUSION
Although this incident happened in February, this was the first I’ve heard of it. Just my opinion, but it sounds like a wise decision to keep Elboushi locked up…
Despite it not being clear in the news article, this incident occurred before security screening.
Nothing short of jail would “restrain his narcissistic self entitlement.” Clearly the magistrate hasn’t been at a Marriott checkin counter in recent months, although it’s true that I’ve not seen any fake bombs deployed in pursuit of an upgrade…yet.
Falsely making bomb threats ?
Would it better or worse if they were true bomb threats?
@Matthew, that would be, “defuse” the situation. 😉
In any case, I agree; it’s a good thing the judge denied him bail… 😮
A play on words? 😉 “fuse”