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CAL flight attendant threatened Tsai with bomb

Suspect arrested within 36 hours: police

President Tsai safe on board

CAL flight attendant threatened Tsai with bomb

President Tsai safe on board

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Police in New Taipei City arrested a China Airlines flight attendant who said he had put a bomb on board the plane which took President Tsai Ing-wen on her first overseas trip last week, reports said Wednesday.
The suspect was a 43-year-old man surnamed Huang, reports said. The incident happened on the day that Tsai was leaving but which was also the day that CAL flight attendants held an unprecedented strike against the company.
The emergency services received a call from a man at 8:25 a.m. on June 24 that a bomb had been placed on the aircraft that would take Tsai to the United States and on to Panama later that day, police said.
Agents from the National Security Bureau boarded the plane and checked it for explosives, but nothing was found, allowing the flight to leave according to schedule, reports said Wednesday.
A special taskforce was set up in Hsinchuang, New Taipei City, where the call was found to have originated from.
The investigators came to the conclusion that the call had been made from a public phone booth next to a Hsinchuang convenience store, where the suspect bought a phone card. They checked footage from surveillance cameras in the area, which was likely to have helped them track the man’s movements.
At 2 p.m. on June 25, police issued with a warrant picked Huang up for questioning, reports said. He reportedly told interrogators that he had wanted to express how heavy flight attendants’ workload was.
The news of the threat against the president was only released on Wednesday evening.