Man charged over tsunami hoax emails
LONDON (Reuters) - Police say they have charged a man with sending hoax emails to relatives of people missing since the Asian tsunami, saying their loved ones had been confirmed dead.
The hoaxer, claiming to be from the "Foreign Office Bureau" in Thailand, targeted people who had placed appeals for information about relatives and friends on the website of Sky News.
Police said a 40-year-old man from Lincolnshire was charged with malicious communication and causing a public nuisance.
He was due to appear at a London court on Monday.
On Sunday, officers seized computer equipment in a joint operation by London's Metropolitan Police and Lincolnshire police.
All the messages came from one bogus email address, ukgovfoffice@aol.com.
"The British government would not use email to convey news of the death of a loved one," police said. "Anyone receiving such an email should treat it with utmost caution."
Sky News said it was "disgusted" at the abuse of the message board on its Web site and had contacted police as soon as it was alerted to the hoaxes.
The death toll from the tsunami, triggered by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake off western Indonesia a week ago, stood at more than 144,000 on Monday, including at least 40 Britons.
I can't believe that someone would be so heartless!
Sweet revenge!
