on the morning of the 6th i belive, a Sunday, (we'll call him Ramshackle, since that was/is his board name, different board) posted under the name of 'Freedom for Paliestine' a cut and pasted message [taken from a palistine's group website] that he was in Bergamo for a Radiohead concert and planned to carry out a suicide bomb that evening.
After going along with this for about half an hour, replying to other members messages, he went away to return a few hours later and owned up to the 'prank'. What he didn't know was that this set off a sequence of events which involved the Police in England, America, Holland and Italy. On realising this he gave himself into his local Police Station.. of course though they had no idea about the problem as it was being dealt with a specialised unit.
Although the persons involved concluded that yes it was a 'hoax' they hightened security for the shows in Italy, and claim that it cost approximately $36,000 to finance the measures for 30 concerts following the hoax.
Ramshackle was later charged and arrested for the hoax in September. This morning was the sentancing of the charge at 'Crown Court. On passing judgement, the Judge took into consideration his good charcter, current and future prospects, etc, and that he had admitted guilt at the earliest opportunity. She said that he has used the mb as his own private playground, forgetting that it was also a open and public forum. However, she claimed, quite rightly, that in the 'current climate' she had no choice but to pass a custodial sentance as a lesson to others.
Given that she could have passed anything up to 2 years imprisonment, she sentanced him to 5 months inside, of which he will serve 2.5 month [with good behaviour]. I didn't have a chance to ask him if it were okay to do this, but i suspect the info would have got out anyway.
kinda fucked, but since i know he'll die laughing about it years later, it's not like he didnt have it coming.