Man charged after Brisbane airport evacuated over bomb scare

A man has been charged after Brisbane airport was in lock down for more than two hours last night

A 50-year-old man has been charged following investigations into an incident at the Brisbane Airport last night. At around 9pm, police were called to the international terminal following reports of a man in the food court, armed with a knife who was threatening a woman who is known to him.
Police will allege when they arrived they also located a suspicious device and proceeded to evacuate the area. An exclusion zone was declared under the Public Safety Preservation Act as specialist police examined the device and deemed it to be non-suspicious.
The exclusion zone was revoked at 11pm. A second exclusion zone was declared at the Bruce Bishop Carpark in Surfers Paradise just after midnight and revoked at 1.45am.
Police will allege the exclusion zone in Surfers Paradise was a precaution related to the Brisbane Airport incident. The Surfers Paradise man has been charged with one count each of contravene a domestic violence order, stalking with a weapon, stealing and serious assault police.
He has also been charged with two counts each of making a false statement which can be inferred that there is a plan to damage or destroy a commonwealth air navigation facility, bomb hoax, and common assault.   The incident began just before 9pm in the terminal’s food court, when the man allegedly pulled out a knife and placed a metal object on a table, claiming it was a bomb, after an extensive argument with a woman.  He then chased the woman, a family member, through the terminal while brandishing the knife, witnesses said.
It triggered a major response from the Australian Federal Police and local police who locked down the airport for more than two hours and halted the airport train services.
Police confronted the man and fired non-lethal beanbag rounds at him, at which point he surrendered to officers. “A beanbag round was shot at a man, in the abdomen. It spun him around and he decided to surrender to police,”. No one else was injured.
The man was reportedly at the airport with his wife, mother-in-law and two children who were there to catch a flight.
He is due to appear before the Brisbane Magistrate’s Court tomorrow.