Indonesian jailed

Indonesian jailed for SMS bomb hoax

An Indonesian salesman who sent two hoax SMS bomb threats while in Malaysia's northern Penang state was sentenced Wednesday to 25 months in jail, a report said. The 23-year-old from the Indonesian town of Medan, named Kurniawan, received two jail sentences of 12 and 13 months and was fined 5,000 ringgit (US$1,326) for the hoax, which sparked a security scare in Penang, the official Bernama news agency said. He had previously admitted sending two SMS threats to police in August, saying bombs would explode at an airport and a shopping complex in Penang. Bernama said that one message read: "Hello, I'm one of Al-Qaeda member. I want to tell you about Libenny. He is on his way to the Penang International Airport. He wants to put a bomb there and then hijack the Lion Airlines. I don't want see any incident in Malaysia. I love Malaysia". A lawyer for Kurniawan said his client regretted his actions and did not realize how serious they were. Malaysia has started a campaign to register millions of pre-paid mobile phone subscribers to prevent the untraceable handsets being used to send threatening or slanderous messages. -- AFP