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Australia: A complete and utter wombat who attempted to hijack a plane is claiming that his invisible friend made him do it. Not unlike the Shrub's excuse for going to war really.
The man accused of trying to hijack a Melbourne-to-Launceston Qantas flight last year believed that God had called on him to crash the plane, a Victorian court has heard.
David Mark Robinson, 41, is alleged to have planned to kill the 50 passengers and six crew aboard the flight before crashing it into the Walls of Jerusalem national park in northern Tasmania.
Just to point out for the geographically challenged, Walls of Jerusalem
is a national park in Tasmania, that little triangle shaped island under Australia, and not an architectural feature in Israel. Although I guess you could argue it was an anti-semitic attack by a man with the directional sense of child's spinning top.
He is charged with attempting to hijack a plane, one count of the attempted murder of a male cabin crew member and a further count of intentionally inflicting grievous bodily harm on a female flight attendant.
Mr Robinson, who remained expressionless during the opening of his Supreme Court trial yesterday, has pleaded not guilty to all charges on the grounds of mental impairment.
Is anyone surprised by this claim?
Crown prosecutor Michael Cahill said the accused had boarded the plane on May 29, 2003, armed with two sharpened wooden stakes, two cigarette lighters and two aerosol cans.
Davy boy had the sense to realise that guns and knives wouldn't make it through screening, but what were security thinking he was planning on doing with a DIY vampire slaying kit and improvised flame throwers in his carry-on luggage? Cooking up toasted marshmallows for his fellow passengers?
He booked a seat with the intention of killing everyone on the plane so he could fly it to the Walls of Jerusalem where he would crash it,Mr Cahill said.
Mr Robinson's lawyer, Peter Morrissey, said the facts surrounding the case were undisputed but said such was his client's mental state at the time of the incident that he was unable to recognise that what he did was wrong.
I'm curious to know what Davy's invisible friend had against a Tasmanian national park.
Accused hijacker 'chosen by God' - The Mercury, 13th July 2004.
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Comments
1: Posted by: Feòrag | July 13, 2004 2:39 PM
Talking of Tasmania, I found this lovely euphemisim in the Mainichi Daily News: " the map of Tasmania between her thighs".
2: Posted by: Red Wolf | July 14, 2004 12:10 AM
That's a local euphemisim too. I was wondering how it ended up in a Japanese paper, but it appears that the journalist, Ryann Connell, hales from Melbourne.
3: Posted by: Feòrag | July 22, 2004 5:54 PM
You know, this and an earlier story of yours display a heartening trend of juries accepting that religiously-motivated criminals are nuts.
Evangelism, witnessing and similar activitites go by one name here—, and is no different from spam for viagra, penis enlargement products and pornography. We do not take advertising. If you want to advertise your imaginary friend, please spend your own money on your own web space to do so. Any attempts to use the comments section for advertisements will be deleted, and the perpetrator barred, unless they are particularly stupid, in which case I reserve the right to pinch an idea from Teresa Nielsen Hayden and delete all the vowels.
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