Azernews.Az

By Nazrin Gadimova

The Georgian parliament has adopted amendments to tighten the punishment for hoax terrorism calls.

According to the changes to the Criminal Code, the term of punishment will increase to five years instead of the current three year in imprisonment. In this case, the action committed in aggravating circumstances, in particular by a group of persons or repeatedly committed actions, with causing significant damage, shall be punished with imprisonment from five to seven years, instead of current term from three to five years.

Moreover, parliament approved changes to the Administrative Code, according to which a punishment in the form of a fine from 300 to 1,000 lari (1 lari = $ 0.6) is to be considered for making regular false and purposeless calls to Emergency and Operative Response Centre 112. This sanction doesn't apply to the perpetrators of hoax calls about terrorism, since such action is punishable under the Criminal Code.

The changes were initiated by MP Tamaz Avdalianig representing the Georgian Dream Party.

The Interior Ministry said earlier anonymous calls about bomb threats in various facilities have become frequent in Georgia, upsetting the population and inflicting considerable financial damage both to the government and private organizations.

About 15 hoax calls about a bomb threat have been logged since September 12 till present. The perpetrators were calling about bombs planted in TV companies, parliament, a bank and a school. All those people were named by the Georgian Interior Ministry. The majority of them were minors.