Man who made threats to Alex Salmond jailed

A man who threatened to attack Alex Salmond, in a revenge bid against his ex-partner’s new boyfriend, has been sentenced to a year in jail.
Scotland's First Minister Alex SalmondScotland's First Minister Alex Salmond
Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond

Stephen Cruz, 34, sent abusive messages to the police threatening to slit Alex Salmond’s throat and made racist remarks about the Queen.

Cruz also told police that three letter bombs were going to go off at Armed Forces career offices in cities across Scotland.

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It is understood he signed off under the name of Stuart Thomson when he sent the comments through the contact us section of the Police Scotland website.

And he told concerned police officers that three letter bombs were going to go off at Armed Forces career offices in cities across Scotland.

Dozens of officers were drafted in after the threats were made with officers put on intelligence gathering enquiries and CID officers put on the case in Dundee.

Royal Mail officials were informed and police conducted enquiries in Aberdeen, Dundee and Glasgow to assess the threat before Cruz was eventually tracked down.

Cruz admitted behaving in a threatening and abusive manner when he appeared at Aberdeen Sheriff Court on Friday.

Sheriff Graeme Napier told him: “If the seriousness of this offence was not obvious to you by the fact you have been remanded in custody then it should have been made clear but the amount of effort expended by the authorities charged with keeping us safe.

“This is a very, very worrying offence.

“You have shown a complete an utter disregard not only for the law but also for a fellow human being that you tried to implicate in this.

“It beggars belief.

“The seriousness must be marked by a custodial sentence.”

The court was told that the messages had been prompted by a bad break-up with girlfriend who then started seeing another man.

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One of the posts to Police Scotland said: “Hey min I am gonna slit Salmond’s throat wide open.”

He then went on to make several racist remarks, referring to the Queen as German, adding that letter bombs were due to detonate at Army Careers officers at noon.

Cruz’s defence agent Stuart Flowerdew said his client had taken badly to the breakdown of his relationship with his former girlfriend.

He said: “He chose to focus on the new boyfriend of the woman.

“He said he wanted to make that person see what it was like to lose everything.”

Cruz, described as a prisoner at HMP Grampian, sent the messages between January 20 and March 6 while travelling between St Peter’s Court, Peterhead, and the Gallowgate area of Aberdeen.

The court heard on March 6 that Cruz intimated to officers that three letter bombs had been sent to Armed Forces recruitment offices in Aberdeen, Dundee and Edinburgh.

He claimed they were going to detonate on the same day.