Plane passenger tells security penis pump is bomb

Mardin Amin, 29, was en route to Turkey on 16 August with his dear old ma and two small children when a female security operative extracted a "small, black, squeezable rubber object" from his backpack. Since he was standing next to his mum, Amin decided to whisper out of the corner of his mouth that it was a "pump". The guard misheard it as "bomb", with inevitable consequences.

That, at least, was the version offered yesterday by Amin's defense attorney, Eileen O'Neill-Burke, in the Cook County courtroom where the pneumatic defendant sought to clarify the misunderstanding. As "snickering police officers watched the court proceedings", O'Neill-Burke explained: "He told her it's a pump. He's standing with his mother. Of course he's not going to shout this out."