BERLIN (AP) — An Italian man living in Berlin has been convicted of attempted extortion for threatening to blow up a British National Health Service hospital unless he was paid off with 10 million pounds ($13.2 million) in crypto currency. Defendant Emil A., whose last name wasn’t given in line with German privacy laws, was sentenced to three years in prison. Though he never made good on the threat against an unspecified hospital, it came during the early months of the coronavirus pandemic as the British health care system was struggling and authorities there stressed how seriously it had been taken at the time.
