A U.S. court on Friday sentenced a Vietnamese-American man to four weeks imprisonment after finding him guilty of slapping a cabin crew member during a plane bomb hoax in late September.

The convicted man, La Andy Hien Duc, 37, committed the offense while aboard Flight SQ33 of Singapore Airlines from U.S.’s San Francisco to Singapore on September 26, according to Reuters. 

Duc was also alleged to give a bogus bomb warning on the flight but the court dropped charges against him after looking into an expert assessment of his mental health conditions.

Appearing at the trial via a video link, the man pleaded guilty of slapping a member of the cabin crew who tried to restrain him while he was giving the false bomb threat.

The defendant’s lawyer Johannes Hadi told the court that his client has been diagnosed with schizophrenia.

Duc recalled that he had heard a voice in his head telling him there was a bomb on the plane and asking him to shout that out to alert others.

The man declared he had shouted twice loudly to warn about bombs contained in the luggage compartments, where he saw white light appear.  

However, no bomb was found but the flight had to be escorted by fighter jets to Singapore.

“His delusionary beliefs, auditory hallucinations, as well as psychotic thought disorder have greatly contributed to his offending behavior,” Reuters cited the judge as saying.   

As Duc’s jail term was backdated to his detention, the man was released on Friday to return to the U.S.

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