Kurir, Blic and Informer Evacuated Over Bomb Threat
Staff at three Belgrade newsrooms left their buildings after a false bomb threat, and prosecutors are seeking the sender's IP address from Google through the Interior Ministry.
The newsrooms of Kurir, Blic and Informer were evacuated on Friday, August 28, after a bomb threat was sent to several addresses in Belgrade. The message, warning that explosives would be detonated, was sent around 3:15 p.m. to a large number of email addresses belonging to state institutions and media outlets. After searching the buildings, police determined the threats were false.
Staff at all three newsrooms were taken out onto the street while police teams searched the premises. The message, according to reports, was sent to “a large number of email addresses belonging to state institutions and media,” and besides the three newsrooms, it also targeted several other addresses in the city, which the prosecutor’s office did not specify individually in its statement.
What prosecutors asked of the Interior Ministry
Following the threat, the Special Department for the Fight Against High-Tech Crime of the Belgrade Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office sent a request to the Interior Ministry’s (MUP) IT Directorate to urgently contact Google. The goal, according to the statement, was to obtain the IP address of the account from which the message was sent.
“In order to obtain the IP address of the user account from which the threatening message was sent,” the Special Department for the Fight Against High-Tech Crime of the Belgrade Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office said in its statement.
Prosecutors added that the request was sent to identify and prosecute the sender, given reasonable grounds to suspect the criminal offense of causing panic and disorder was committed. “The request was sent in order to identify the person who sent the message,” the statement said, as carried by Informer. According to prosecutors, the process is still ongoing.
Timeline of the day
Telegraf was first to report on the threats, at 4:27 p.m., with an update to the story at 4:40 p.m. The Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Belgrade released its statement at 4:39 p.m. Informer published the story at 4:43 p.m., and Tanjug followed at 5:26 p.m., reporting that the prosecutor’s request was sent the same day the message arrived.
The identity of the sender remains unknown, and the process of obtaining the IP address through Google is, according to the prosecutor’s office, still underway.
