A judge has put an art student whose sculpture of a bomb caused a panic in downtown Toronto last November on probation and given him a conditional discharge, rejecting the prosecutor’s arguments for a criminal conviction, The Globe and Mail reported.

The artwork, by Thorarinn Jonsson, who is from Iceland and was then a student of the Ontario College of Art and Design, was treated as a bomb threat, disrupting traffic for hours and causing the cancellation of a black-tie AIDS fund-raising event. Mr. Jonsson, who turned himself in the next day, told the police that his sculpture had been part of a class project.

The college immediately suspended two instructors, with pay, along with the student. An investigation later cleared the instructors, who were reinstated, but Mr. Jonsson withdrew from the college and returned to Iceland until his trial last week.

He apologized in court for his action. Judge William Bassel called it “really a stupid act, even for a young person.” —Karen Birchard