Turk surrenders after hijacking plane

WORLD / Top News

Turk surrenders after hijacking plane

(AP)
Updated: 2006-10-04 06:40

BRINDISI- A Turkish man hijacked a jetliner carrying 113 people from
Albania to Istanbul on Tuesday and forced it to land in southern Italy,
where he surrendered and released all the passengers unharmed, officials
said.

Two senior Turkish officials said the hijacker was seeking political
asylum. An Italian security official said the hijacker had a message for
the pope, but he said he did not know what it was.

Candan Karlitekin, chairman of Turkish Airlines' board of directors,
initially said the Boeing 737-400 had been hijacked by two Turks, and
that they were protesting Pope Benedict XVI's planned visit to Turkey
next month.

Transport Minister Binali Yildirim told The Associated Press that the
hijacker, whom he identified as Hakan Ekinci, was seeking to evade
military service in his native Turkey. Istanbul Gov. Muammer Guler also
said the hijacker was an army deserter who had fled to Albania.

"It has nothing to do with the pope's visit; it was a simple attempt of
seeking political asylum under the influence of psychological problems,"
Yildirim said.

The passengers got off the plane about two hours after it landed in
Brindisi, a town on southern Italy's Adriatic coast. The jet was on a
darkened tarmac, with a fire truck carrying Brindisi airport's chief of
security parked nearby.

The passengers were being questioned one by one by Italian authorities to
confirm their identities and rule out any possibility that the hijacker
had an accomplice.

"The man burst into the cockpit and said 'there's two of us,'" leading
authorities to believe the man was not acting alone, according to the
Italian security official based in Brindisi. The official spoke on
condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the
media.

"There was only one hijacker. He surrendered to authorities at the
airport," the official said.

The Turkish captain issued an alert that the plane was hijacked shortly
after it took off from the Albanian capital of Tirana for Istanbul, and
he was contacted by Greek air traffic controllers at 5:55 p.m. (10:55
a.m. EDT), 15 miles north of Thessaloniki, Greece, said Dimitris
Stavropoulos, spokesman for Greece's Civil Aviation Authority.

The plane later contacted Italian air traffic controllers and asked to
land in Brindisi, and it was escorted to the ground by two Italian
military jets, according to Nicoletta Tomiselli, a spokeswoman for the
Italian air traffic agency ENAV.

Salvatore Sciacchitano, deputy director of the ENAC civil aviation
agency, said the plane had been carrying 107 passengers and a crew of six.

The Italian security official said the hijacker was seeking to have a
message delivered to the pope, but said he did not know what it was.

Ekinci had converted to Christianity and was an army deserter and
anti-militarist who fled to Albania in 2006, according to the private
Dogan news agency and NTV television in Turkey.

Ekinci, 28, sent a letter to Benedict on Aug. 30, asking for help not to
return to military service in Turkey, saying he was a Christian, Dogan
reported.

"I am Hakan Ekinci, I am a Christian and I never want to serve in a
Muslim army," he was quoted as saying in a letter to Benedict, according
to Dogan, which said it had obtained the letter on a blog posted on the
Internet. "I am begging you for help as the spiritual leader of us,
Christians' world."

"I have been a churchgoer since 1998, I found the true path in Jesus and
in the Bible," Ekinci reportedly wrote.

Guler confirmed that the hijacker was the same person who posted letters
on the Internet.

Most Commented/Read Stories in 48 Hours

Today's Top News 

� North Korea says will conduct nuclear test

� Beijing gov't disapproves rice rumours

� S. Korean FM close to being UN leader

� 5 girls dead in US school shooting

� Wen vows all-round reform, opening up

Top World News 

� Rice calls nuke test 'provocative act'

� Iraq court delays Saddam verdict

� S.Korea FM would be next UN chief

� Bush to visit Indonesia

� Rice: I don't recall alert about attack

Alibaba is the largest B2B marketplace in the world. Source model ship,
wooden puzzle, one-piece toilet, RC hovercraft, photo album, prom dress,
pocket bike, Vaginal Speculum, Samurai Sword, String Panty and PVC Pipe.

20071125 http://www.hellomandarin.net