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Egypt requests extradition of detained hijack suspect Last 5 hostages on hijacked Egypt plane recall fear, photo
(about 4 hours later)
LARNACA, Cyprus — Egypt formally asked Cyprus on Wednesday to extradite a detained Egyptian man who authorities say admitted hijacking a domestic EgyptAir flight and diverting it to Cyprus by threatening to blow it up with a fake explosives belt. LARNACA, Cyprus — First the hijacker said the women could leave. All the children, too. Then the man in the suicide vest agreed that all Egyptians and others from Muslim backgrounds would be allowed to escape from the plane.
The legal developments came as those on board described an unnerving situation in which the hijacker looked for foreigners by sorting through their passports and kept five on them on the plane after freeing the non-Western passengers. That left five Western men — at least one of whom thought they were about to die.
“He wanted the foreigners ... only foreigners. He didn’t want Egyptians or double nationalities,” flight attendant Rouida Ihab told The Associated Press. “We looked each other in the eyes and we said: Here we are. We’re at the end of the line. It’s over,” recalled the Italian in the group, Andrea Banchetti, the day after an Egyptian man took control of a short EgyptAir flight to Cairo by donning a fake explosives belt and diverting it across the Mediterranean to Cyprus.
Italian passenger Andrea Banchetti said passengers were calm through the ordeal but admitted “(I was) going out of my mind” when the hijacker let non-Western passengers off the plane, leaving behind only five European passport-holders including himself. Seif Eddin Mustafa, 59, was arrested by Cypriot police Tuesday without physically harming a soul. The final five from Britain, Italy and the Netherlands were ultimately released just like the others. A day later, passengers openly second-guessed themselves over whether they had been right to feel terrified, skeptical or somewhere in between.
“We looked each other in the eyes and we said, ‘Here we are. We’re at the end of the line. It’s over,’” the 47-year-old mechanic told the Rome daily La Repubblica. “I was going out of my mind,” said Banchetti, a 47-year-old mechanic from the Italian city of Genoa, recalling those confused, nerve-racking final minutes as the plane emptied with only the five men kept on board. They had been singled out after the hijacker confiscated their European passports.
The extradition request from Egypt’s General Prosecutor Nabil Sadek came shortly after a Cypriot court ordered Wednesday that the suspect, identified as 59-year-old Seif Eddin Mustafa, remain in police custody for eight days to assist the hijacking investigation. Not all expressed such open fears. The Dutchman on board, 56-year-old businessman Huub Helthuis, said when he talked to Mustafa once the plane had landed, the Egyptian replied in English: “Don’t worry, nothing will happen.” He eyed Mustafa’s vest of mysterious pockets and tangled wires and wondered whether they were real.
Police prosecutor Andreas Lambrianou said the suspect faces preliminary charges including hijacking, illegal possession of explosives, kidnapping and threats to commit violence. “The bombs were fake,” he recalled Wednesday in a telephone interview from Amsterdam, “but you couldn’t know that.”
Judge Maria Loizou said she approved the police request for the maximum eight-day detention because of fears that the suspect might flee and because he admitted to the hijacking in a voluntary statement to police. While the plane was still airborne, flight attendants and the pilots said they tried to speak informally to Mustafa, offering him drinks and making small talk. The pilot, Amr Al-Gammal, said the hijacker even let him choose whether to land in Turkey, Greece or the nearest choice, Cyprus.
Tuesday’s hijacking, which started when authorities said Mustafa claimed to have explosives in a belt and forced a flight from Alexandria to Cairo to land in Cyprus, ended peacefully about six hours later. Most of the 72 passengers and crew aboard the Airbus A320 were released soon after the plane landed, although a handful were held for longer. All were let go before Mustafa was arrested when he tried to flee on foot after leaving the plane, police said. The atmosphere grew sufficiently informal and relaxed that one of the English passengers, 26-year-old health and safety inspector Ben Innes, posed for a wide-grinning photo alongside the self-billed bomber.
Lambrianou said after Mustafa was arrested, he told police: “What’s someone supposed to do when he hasn’t seen his wife and children in 24 years and the Egyptian government won’t let him?” “I’m not sure why I did it. I just threw caution to the wind while trying to stay cheerful in the face of adversity. I figured if his bomb was real I’d nothing to lose anyway, so took a chance to get a closer look at it,” Innes was quoted as telling The Sun newspaper in London.
Egypt’s interior ministry said Mustafa had a long criminal record but had finished serving a one-year prison term in March 2015. An official at the general prosecutor’s office, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press, said there was no travel ban on Mustafa. “I got one of the cabin crew to translate for me and asked him if I could do a selfie with him. He just shrugged OK, so I stood by him and smiled for the camera while a stewardess did the snap,” Innes was quoted as saying.
A Cypriot police official told the AP that Mustafa’s criminal record on the island stretched back to 1988, when he was convicted on six counts of forging passports and handed a suspended sentence. He was later deported to Egypt following domestic violence charges by his then-Cypriot wife. Some fellow hostages said they thought Innes had been a reckless imbecile.
He re-entered Cyprus on an assumed Qatari identity, but was tracked down and again deported to Egypt in 1990. Mustafa and his Cypriot wife divorced in 1994. The couple had four children but one child has since died, according to a relative who didn’t want to be named discussing family matters. Banchetti told La Repubblica newspaper in Rome that he’d wanted to slap Innes across the face.
The police official spoke on condition of anonymity because he’s not authorized to discuss details of an ongoing investigation. “How do you go up to him that way and take a photo of him? ‘Are you a fool?’ I said in English,” Banchetti recalled.
After the hearing Wednesday, a handcuffed Mustafa flashed the “V’’ for victory sign out the window of a police vehicle as he was driven away from the Larnaca court house. On Wednesday, Egypt General Prosecutor Nabil Sadek formally requested Mustafa’s extradition from Cyprus. But a Larnaca court ordered that he should remain in local police custody for eight days to assist Cyprus’ own investigation.
Cypriot officials had described Mustafa as “psychologically unstable” following a bizarre set of demands he made to police negotiators, including what Lambrianou said was a letter he wanted delivered to his Cypriot ex-wife in which he demanded the release of 63 dissident women imprisoned in Egypt. Cyprus police prosecutor Andreas Lambrianou said Mustafa faces preliminary charges including hijacking, illegal possession of explosives, kidnapping and threats to commit violence.
Lambrianou said 15 minutes into flight MS181 Mustafa demanded that the aircraft be diverted to an airport in Greece, Turkey or Cyprus. Despite an initial refusal from Cypriot authorities, the plane eventually landed in Larnaca after the pilots warned about low fuel. Lambrianou said no confirmed explosives were found, but police did recover unidentified liquids in a container and in his bag. The allegation regarding explosives could be dropped if the liquid turns out not to be an explosive.
The police prosecutor said witnesses saw Mustafa wearing a white belt with pockets that had cylindrical objects stuffed inside. Wire protruding from the cylinders led to what appeared to be a detonator in his hand. The prosecutor said after Mustafa was arrested, he told police: “What’s someone supposed to do when he hasn’t seen his wife and children in 24 years and the Egyptian government won’t let him?”
Among those forced to stay on the plane longer was Ben Innes, a British man pictured in a photo with Mustafa that quickly made the rounds on social media. Egypt’s interior ministry said Mustafa had a long criminal record but had finished serving a one-year prison term in March 2015. An official at the general prosecutor’s office, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press, said Egypt imposed no travel ban on Mustafa.
Innes told The Sun newspaper he wanted to take “the selfie of a lifetime” while the incident was unfolding. The bizarre photo, taken by a member of the cabin crew and shared on social media, shows him smiling next to Mustafa, who has his jacket open to reveal the fake explosive belt. A Cypriot police official told the AP that Mustafa’s criminal record on the island stretched back to 1988, when he was convicted on six counts of forging passports and given a suspended sentence. He was deported to Egypt following domestic violence charges by his then-Cypriot wife.
“I figured if his bomb was real I’d nothing to lose anyway,” Innes, 26, told the newspaper in a story published Wednesday. He told The Sun he had been texting his mother throughout the ordeal. He re-entered Cyprus on an assumed Qatari identity, but was tracked down and again deported to Egypt in 1990. Mustafa and his Cypriot wife divorced in 1994. The couple had four children but one child is dead, according to a relative who didn’t want to be identified by name discussing family matters.
Banchetti told La Repubblica he should have “slapped” Innes for taking that photo. After Wednesday’s court hearing, a handcuffed Mustafa flashed the “V’’ for victory sign out the window of a police vehicle as he was driven away.
“That guy could have had a potato in his belt, but how do you go up to him that way and take a photo of him?” said Banchetti. “’Are you a fool?’ I said in English.” Cypriot officials have described Mustafa as psychologically unstable, citing his bizarre set of demands to police negotiators. Lambrianou said Mustafa had wanted a letter delivered to his Cypriot ex-wife in which he demanded the release of 63 female political dissidents imprisoned in Egypt.
Mustafa had threatened to detonate the belt if police attempted to “neutralize” him, Lambrianou said, but he eventually gave up after the crew and passengers were released.
Banchetti told the Milan daily Corriere della Sera that he told Cypriot police the “haphazard tangle of things” that was the hijacker’s alleged explosive belt seemed fake.
Lambrianou said no explosives were found in the belt, except for a container filled with an unidentified liquid. Police also found an unidentified liquid in the suspect’s bag. The allegation regarding explosives could be dropped if the liquid found with Mustafa is not explosive material.
The prosecutor said Cypriot authorities will Interpol to help determine how the suspect managed to get the fake belt through Egyptian airport security.
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Magdy reported from Cairo. Frances D’Emilio in Rome and Greg Katz in London contributed to this report. Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press reporters Frances D’Emilio in Rome, Maggie Michael in Cairo, Frank Jordans in Berlin and Shawn Pogatchnik in Dublin contributed to this report.
Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.