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Libyan Airliner Is Hijacked and Diverted to Malta | Libyan Airliner Is Hijacked and Diverted to Malta |
(35 minutes later) | |
CAIRO — A Libyan airliner carrying more than 100 people and bound for the capital, Tripoli, was hijacked Friday morning and forced to land in Malta, although more than half of the passengers were later allowed to leave the plane, the Maltese prime minister said. | |
There were two hijackers on board the Airbus A320 and they had threatened to detonate an explosive device, according to airline officials and Maltese news reports. Prime Minister Joseph Muscat of Malta said that the island’s security services were “coordinating operations.” | |
The flight, operated by the state-owned Afriqiyah Airways of Libya, took off from the southern Libyan city of Sebha and was scheduled to fly to Tripoli, the capital, which is on the coast. It was diverted to Malta, about 200 miles across the Mediterranean Sea from Tripoli. | The flight, operated by the state-owned Afriqiyah Airways of Libya, took off from the southern Libyan city of Sebha and was scheduled to fly to Tripoli, the capital, which is on the coast. It was diverted to Malta, about 200 miles across the Mediterranean Sea from Tripoli. |
“First group of passengers, consisting of women and children, being released now,” Mr. Muscat wrote on Twitter, before later writing that 65 passengers had disembarked. Live footage from the Malta airport showed a group of women and children leaving the plane. | |
Mr. Muscat also posted on Twitter that there were 111 passengers on the plane, including 82 men, 28 women and one infant. Afriqiyah officials confirmed that figure, adding that seven crew members were also on board. | |
The identity and affiliation of the hijackers were unknown, but a senior Afriqiyah Airways official said that one of them had demanded a visa for Europe, suggesting the hijacking had not been directed by a militant group. | |
“We feared he might be one of those ideological people, but that seems not to be the case,” said the official, Captain Abdelatif Ali Kablan, the chairman of the airline, speaking by telephone from Tripoli. | |
It was the second hijacking this year of a passenger jet in the Mediterranean region. In March, an Egyptian man commandeered an EgyptAir domestic flight en route to Cairo and forced it to land in Cyprus, where he demanded the release of political prisoners in Egypt and a meeting with his estranged wife. | |
The crisis ended hours later with the surrender of the hijacker, Seif Eldin Mustafa, who turned out to be wearing a fake explosives vest fashioned from mobile phone cases that had been taped together. | |
In September, a court in Cyprus ordered the deportation of Mr. Mustafa, 59, to Egypt. His lawyers are resisting the order and seeking asylum for Mr. Mustafa, claiming he could be tortured if sent home. |