Adam Busby
Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Use Irish English {{#invoke:other uses|otheruses}} Adam Stuart Busby (born 1948) is a Scottish nationalist who claims to be the founder of the Scottish National Liberation Army.<ref name="BBC 31 July 2013">Template:Cite news</ref> In 1983 after a hoax letter-bombing campaign against high-profile public figures he organised attacks from Dublin involving anthrax hoaxes, bomb threats, and genuine parcel bombs.<ref name=jailed/> In 1997 he was jailed in Ireland for two hoax phone threats against Scottish media organisations.<ref name="news.bbc.co.uk"/><ref name=irishtimes/>
Early lifeEdit
Busby was associated with the separatist group called the Scottish Liberation Army. He joined the British army and trained briefly in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders.<ref name="news.bbc.co.uk">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
CareerEdit
In 1983 letter bombs were sent to the Ministry of Defence, oil companies and public figures including Lady Diana Spencer and the prime minister, Margaret Thatcher. The device sent to Thatcher was active and was opened by parliamentarian Robert Key but there was no explosion. Busby fled to Dublin after the letter-bombing campaign.<ref name=jailed/><ref name="news.bbc.co.uk"/> He reportedly tried to join forces with the Provisional Irish Republican Army, but the offer is said to have been refused.<ref name="news.bbc.co.uk"/> He organised attacks from Dublin involving anthrax hoaxes, bomb threats, and genuine parcel bombs.<ref name=jailed/>
In 1997, Busby was jailed in Ireland for two hoax phone threats against Scottish media organisations.<ref name="news.bbc.co.uk"/><ref name=irishtimes/>
In 1999, he then reportedly formed the short lived Republican Revenge Group (RRG),<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> a proposed Pan-Celtic militant organisation.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He was questioned by the gardaí in Dublin later that year regarding an RRG blackmail plot, threatening to contaminate English and Welsh water supplies with weedkiller unless then-Prime Minister Tony Blair withdrew from Northern Ireland.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
In May 2006 he sent threats by email from Charleville Mall public library to BAA at London Heathrow Airport claiming bombs were on two New York flights.<ref name="irishtimes">Template:Cite news</ref> BAA did not take the threats seriously. Busby denied making the threats.
In September 2006, the Sunday Times reported that Busby might be targeted for extradition to the United States to face terror charges. Police in Ireland were said to have agreed to help the FBI, MI5 and Special Branch to investigate a series of e-mails to the US about how to contaminate US water supplies. They also reported that an email, believed to have been sent from Canada, contained a warning to their Glasgow office threatening to poison water supplies in England.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
In July 2010 he was sentenced by a Dublin court to four years in jail for the May 2006 threats by email to BAA at London Heathrow Airport claiming bombs were on two New York flights. Two of the years were suspended due to his age and health, as he has multiple sclerosis and uses a wheelchair.<ref name=jailed>Template:Cite news</ref>
In 2010, Busby was alleged to have made threats against then-Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Gordon Brown.<ref name="Belfast Telegraph 1 April 2014">Template:Cite news</ref>
On 15 August 2012, a United States federal grand jury returned two indictments charging Busby, a resident of Ballymun, Dublin, Ireland,<ref name=irishtimes/> with emailing bomb threats targeting the University of Pittsburgh, three federal courthouses and a federal officer. A separate four-count indictment charged Mr Busby with, on 20 and 21 June, maliciously conveying false information through the Internet claiming bombs had been placed at federal courthouses in Pittsburgh, Erie, and Johnstown in Pennsylvania.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Busby was released from an Irish prison on 21 March 2014 and was reported to be living in a Dublin hostel, banned from internet access, awaiting verdicts about his extradition to Scotland and the US.<ref name="CBS News. 1 April 2014">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. 1 April 2014">Template:Cite news</ref>
In February 2015, Busby was extradited to Scotland.<ref name="Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. 8 November 2017">Template:Cite news</ref> In October of that year, however, a Glasgow court ruled that he was medically unfit to be tried over multiple bomb threats.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In 2017, the Sheriff Court of Lothian and Borders in Edinburgh ruled that Busby, by then 69, was too ill to be sent to the US, as his multiple sclerosis was at an advanced stage.<ref name="Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. 8 November 2017"></ref>