Singaporean man charged with making fake terrorist threat after church bomb hoax

A 26-year-old Singaporean man who was arrested after a suspicious item was found at St Joseph’s Church in Bukit Timah was charged with making a false terrorist threat on Monday.

Kokulananthan Mohan was charged with an offence under Regulation 8(2)(a) of the United Nations (Anti-terrorism Measures) Regulations.

According to charge sheets, he is accused of placing three cardboard rolls “filled with stone pebbles and sporting protruding red wires, held together using black and yellow adhesive tapes” in the church at about 7.10am on Sunday.

This was allegedly done with the intention of inducing a Richard Lee Leong Hee to a false belief that the item was likely to explode or ignite and thereby cause personal injury or damage to property. It is understood that Mr Lee, 66, is a church volunteer.

“Preliminary investigations suggest that the man had allegedly staged the incident by placing a self-fabricated item which resembled an improvised explosive device within the church premises,” the Singapore Police Force said in a statement on Monday.