An Australian man of Hong Kong descent suspected of making a bomb threat on a Chinese airliner will be handed over to the judicial department for prosecution, said police source in Guangzhou on Sunday.

The suspect, Wong Chung-wah, confessed to what he had done on Aug. 21.

The police said they have collected plenty of evidence after over ten days investigation and will hand over the case to the local procuratorate on Monday.

Wong's bomb threat, written in a note in a toilet on the plane, forced the China Southern airliner from China to Australia to return to Guangzhou and make an emergency landing,

A large number of policemen and airport staff spent about five hours to search but no bomb was detected.

The hoax severely affected the order and safety of the airport and brought an economic loss of more than 400,000 yuan (about 50,000 U.S. dollars) to China Southern, said a company source.

Zhu Yongping, a lawyer with Guangdong Datong Law Office, said Wong's bomb hoax led to a serious waste of public resources and his deed could be regarded as a crime of concocting fake terrorist information.

According to China's Criminal Law, a bomb hoax might lead to five years in prison.

A spokesman with the Australian embassy in Beijing told Xinhua the detainee is a 39-year-old man from the Australian state of New South Wales.

Wong told police during the interrogation that he was lovesick and he made the threat to relieve his depression.

Source: Xinhua