Italian in Berlin ‘demanded £10m from NHS and threatened to bomb hospital’

Emil A attempted to hide his identity using TOR software (file picture)

Credit:  Dominic Lipinski/PA

A man went on trial in Germany on Friday on charges of making a bomb threat against a UK hospital and attempting to extort £10m from the NHS.

The suspect, named only as Emil A under German privacy laws, is a 33-year-old Italian national resident in Germany. He is accused of sending an email to the NHS in April threatening to bomb an unspecified British hospital unless he was paid £10m in Bitcoin.

There are no pleas in the German legal system, and Emil A was silent as the charges against him were read out. Prosecutors allege he made further threats and demands for money in a series of 17 more emails to the NHS. 

He attempted to cover his tracks by sending the emails via the anonymous TOR network, software designed to hide an internet user’s identity. But the UK National Crime Agency (NCA) was able to trace the emails to Berlin and identify him with the assistance of German police. 

Man threatened to bomb a NHS hospital unless he was paid £10m

Credit: Dominic Lipinski/PA

He was arrested in June but the case was not publicised at the time in order not to jeopardise investigations into possible accomplices.

German prosecutors allege Emil A may have had links to the far-Right. The threatening messages were sent from an email address which began “Combat18”, which it is believed may have been a reference to the neo-Nazi group of the same name.

Founded in 1992 as a militant wing of the British National Party (BNP), Combat 18 is still active in the UK and was named on a police counter-terrorism watchlist distributed to teachers and doctors earlier this year.

Combat 18 Deutschland, a German branch of the organisation, was banned earlier this year after the chief suspect in the assassination of a German politician was linked to the group. 

German police are reportedly investigating whether there is any link between the case against Emil A and similar emails sent to the German health minister and the German Hospital Society which threatened an IT attack on a hospital unless a ransom of €25m (£23m) was paid in Bitcoin.

The German threats were signed “the state Reich orchestra”. The same signature was used in a series of threatening emails to high-profile German public figures over the last two years. It is not clear if the threats were linked.

Emil A has not been charged in connection with any of the German threats. If found guilty of making the threats against the NHS, he faces up to four years in prison.

The trial continues.