Romanian teenager stands trial for terrorism after triggering fake bomb alerts at schools

Prosecutors from the Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) sent Gabriel Robert Nisipeanu to court on charges of terrorism, after the 17-year-old teenager triggered two fake bomb alerts at high schools in Targoviste. On the morning of March 24, 2017, the teenager sent text messages to Dambovita County Police Inspectorate, Dambovita County Gendarmerie Inspectorate, and the local police in Targoviste, in which he initially said that he wanted to negotiate with the authorities. Then, he threatened to blow up two high schools in the city, according to a statement from DIICOT. He later sent a new message, in which he announced the authorities that the bombs would go off at around 11:00 that morning. Intervention units checked the two high schools after the threat, and decided that the alert was a fake one. However, later the same day, Gabriel Robert Nisipeanu sent another text message to Dambovita Gendarmerie, saying: "You have blocked us from accessing the two high schools, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t others in the city.” The teenager was a student at one of the high schools targeted by the fake bomb threats. Prosecutors detain Romanian allegedly connected to 2015 Paris attackers Irina Marica, irina.marica@romania-insider.com