Six minors, aged 14 to 17, were taken into custody on Tuesday November 28, suspected of being the perpetrators of false bomb threats against their high school in Vizille (Isère), announced the Grenoble public prosecutor's office.
“They are suspected of being the authors of six false bomb threats between November 6 and 17” at the Portes de l’Oisans high school, prosecutor Eric Vaillant said in a press release.
At the same time, sixteen establishments had to be evacuated in Grenoble after receiving threatening emails, some of them several times in the same day, according to the rectorate of the Grenoble academy.
Investigators established that during each of these alerts, “a student’s cell phone was used, with or against their will.” A call was made to the high school's main line and unequivocally, "a sometimes robotic voice announced the explosion of the establishment", according to the same source.
The lines and owners of the telephones identified made it possible to trace the authors of the false alerts.
Up to two years in prison and a fine of 30,000 euros incurred
“Systematically, classes had to be interrupted, the 1,400 students, the hundred teachers evacuated,” continued the prosecutor, specifying that the young defendants will be summoned before the children’s judge on December 19.
Prosecuted for the offense of "disclosure of false information about a disaster likely to provoke the intervention of emergency services", they face sentences of two years' imprisonment and a fine of 30,000 euros.
At the beginning of November, at least 26 bomb threats in two days, after the first waves before the All Saints' Day holidays, had taken place in Grenoble high schools, to the great dismay of the teaching staff and the authorities.
