Shell shocked squaddie staged bomb hoax

A British Army veteran who staged a bomb hoax at one of London’s top hotels after he was traumatised by the fighting in the Balkans. Mark Smith, 42, called the emergency services claiming that the CIA were at the Kensington Hilton and that a device would detonate in half an hour on 13 April. Police were able to identify Smith from CCTV footage of the phone box he used to make the call. The court heard that the veteran, who…