- Tuesday, February 25, 2025
Aditya Verma, 20, made a joking remark in a private Snapchat group while going for a vacation in Spain that saw deployment of fighter jets, police and firefighters.
By: Shubham Ghosh
HE called it just a joke but Aditya Verma’s remark that he was a member of the Taliban and intended to “blow up a plane” has landed him in a trial.
The 20-year-old British-Indian chess prodigy said he was only joking when he sent a message to a private Snapchat group before taking a flight to Menorca, Spain, in July 2022 for vacation after completion of examinations, The Times UK reported.
The message saw the situation taking a serious turn as two Spanish fighter jets were deployed to escort the aircraft on which Verma was travelling with 140 people, while police and firefighters waited for it to land.
He’s Aditya Verma, a British citizen, former Chess prodigy and economics student who says he was joking about blowing up a plane within a group of friends.
He had a great future.
Now he’s stuck with a 25K$ fine & 100K$ bill from Spanish MoD. https://t.co/g2JQrPPczA— Joe (@Joe_Anand) January 25, 2024
Verma, who was 18 then, was arrested as soon as he landed on Menorca island.
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This week, Verma appeared in a court in Madrid for a day’s trial and was charged with public order offence, something that he denied. Prosecutors want him to pay £81,000 towards the cost of scrambling the fighter planes besides a fine of £22,500 if he was found to be guilty.
Verma, a student of economics at the University of Bath who was born in India and played for England in international chess competitions, said he did not intend to provoke a security alert.
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“I was called a Taliban at school because of my features and I used to joke about it and I know the Taliban is considered to be a terrorist group. But I didn’t think it was going to cause people on the flight to be afraid because it was sent to a private friends’ group,” he said through a translator, the Times UK report added.
Verma admitted that he sent a picture from Gatwick to a group of six users at 9.47 am. He was seen wearing a hat and sunglasses in it. The caption read: “On my way to blow up the plane. I’m a member of the Taliban.”
The court heard that authorities in Spain were alerted by British intelligence. While it was not confirmed as to how they received the information but one of Verma’s friends said it might have been harvested from Gatwick’s wifi servers at the time of sending the message.
In court, it was revealed that British intelligence alerted Spanish authorities to the situation. How the information was acquired remains unclear, but a confidant of Verma speculated that it might have been gathered from Gatwick’s wifi servers at the time the message was transmitted.
Verma’s legal representative said his joke became public without any judicial authorisation, adding that the cost of the operation should be borne by the British authorities accusing them of breaching the former’s privacy
Margarita Quintana, who represents Verma, argued that her client’s jest became widely known without any judicial authorization. She further contended that the British authorities, having violated her client’s privacy, should bear the expenses incurred in the operation.
“What he did was the equivalent of making a joke inside a car with friends. Who has the authority to intervene in a joke? If we’re prevented from enjoying freedom of expression, what have we got left?” she asked, according to The Times.
Judge Jose Manuel Fernandez-Prieto will release a ruling in writing at a date which is yet to be fixed.
