Molotov cocktail ends up in toilet after misplaced ‘threat’

A serial criminal’s firebomb plan over an alleged sex assault threat unravelled after a Molotov cocktail landed in the loo.

A serial criminal’s Molotov cocktail threat was derailed when he smashed a window and mistakenly dropped one of the bottles in the toilet, a court has heard.

Yasin Farouk, 23 of Flinders Park, on Thursday pleaded guilty in the Port Adelaide Magistrates Court to arson.

Last June Farouk placed three Molotov cocktails, one of them lit, around a Seaton unit as a warning after he was told the occupant had threatened to sexually assault a 15-year-old girl, the court heard.

Yasin Farouk, who pleaded guilty to leaving Molotov cocktails around a house as a threat. Picture: Facebook

He was then on the run for two months before blood he spilt at the scene when he smashed a window was matched with his DNA.

But his misplaced warning fell on a “completely innocent” housemate of the intended victim who got “caught up in something that had nothing to do with him”, Farouk’s lawyer Sarah Grimwade told the court.

“There were three bottles left (at the unit), one was lit and it was simply placed outside on the rear wall of the unit,” Ms Grimwade said.

“One was unlit and placed under a window of the rear wall of the unit.

“(Farouk) has then punched the glass window of the toilet and placed another (Molotov cocktail) through the window, which has landed in the toilet and that’s not lit either.”

As a result, she submitted Farouk’s offending was reckless as opposed to intending to cause damage or harm.

Farouk was in January 2018 sentenced to four years and nine months behind bars for aggravated robbery and was on bail when the Molotov cocktails were placed around the unit.

He had just days earlier returned positive drug tests after relapsing following a period of sobriety due to his work “drying up”.

The court heard Farouk’s offending were a result of bullying he received at his school, the Islamic College of South Australia, because his father had held a senior position there.

Ms Grimwade also detailed how her client had been on the “receiving end” of his father’s “anger problems”.

Magistrate Paul Foley adjourned the matter for sentencing to occur next week.