Federal officials say a self-proclaimed Scottish separatist marked his early release from an Irish prison this spring by emailing bomb threats targeting the University of Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania federal courthouses, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports. A federal grand jury charged Adam Stuart Busby, 64, of Dublin with sending the threats that disrupted weeks of classes and prompted response from the federal Joint Terrorism Task Force. “I am very relieved,” said Mark Nordenberg, chancellor at Pitt, which welcomes back students next week.
U.S. Attorney David Hickton said Busby, who is in custody in Ireland on unrelated charges, had no connection to the university, but declined to say what led investigators to start looking at him in mid-April. The 52 bomb threats Pitt received in March and April, including some written on walls that officials did not connect to Busby, forced 136 evacuations of students and faculty. Also named in federal charges were Alexander Waterland, 24, of Loveland, Oh., and Brett Hudson, 26, of Hillsboro, Oh., charged with conspiring to post a YouTube video and emails that threatened to release two gigabytes of student and faculty personal information unless Nordenberg apologized for “failing” to protect students during the bomb threats.