Football
Dermot Corrigan, Madrid correspondent 9y

Copa del Rey final bomb threat leads to arrest of teenager

Spanish police have arrested and charged a 17-year-old who wrote on Twitter that he was preparing to bomb this season's Copa del Rey final.

This year's Copa final between Barcelona and Athletic Bilbao has been accompanied by typical political and social debate, including local politicians saying the game should be stopped should fans from both sides whistle the Spanish national anthem when it is played before kickoff.

Choosing the venue for the game also proved controversial, with Real Madrid president Florentino Perez declining to offer the Estadio Santiago Bernabeu for a meeting of Basque and Catalan teams.

The Spanish FA eventually voted on Barca's Camp Nou for the game, which will be played on May 30.

Into this atmosphere a 17-year-old Murcia resident and apparent Madrid supporter wrote on Twitter: "I'm preparing a bomb to explode at the Camp Nou on the day of the Copa del Rey final."

The tweet was sent on to the local police, who have confirmed that the matter had been taken very seriously and a joint investigation between a central technology investigation group and local police in Murcia had succeeded in identifying and arresting the culprit.

"The National Police have charged a youth who threatened to target the Camp Nou during the Copa del Rey final," an official statement said.

"Citizen collaboration, via the official @policia profile, has been key in locating the underage individual in the Murcian town of Molina de Segura.

"The 17-year-old published to the web various comments related to the sports event. In one of these he claimed to be preparing a bomb to 'explode' on the day of the game.

"A number of social media profiles notified the official National Police Twitter account to inform us about the threatening content, which had been generating concern among social media users.

"The agents of the Social Media Group made contact with the Technology Investigation Unit to begin the investigation... The publication, on the day after the aviation accident on March 24 in the Alps, had spread rapidly and widely due to its threatening content."

The Police account also thanked those who had helped bring the tweet to the attention of the authorities.

"Thanks to your cooperation, a 17-year-old tweeter who threatened to target the Camp Nou during the Copa del Rey final has been charged," the official account said.

The arrested individual's profile has since been removed from Twitter. There is no suggestion of any further wrongdoing by the youth, apart from writing the offending message.

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