Reuters - Hijackers armed with
what were probably replica weapons forced an airliner to land in Malta on
Friday before freeing all their hostages unharmed and surrendering,
having
declared loyalty to Libya's late leader Muammar Gaddafi.
Television pictures
showed two men being led from the aircraft in handcuffs. The prime minister of
the tiny Mediterranean island, Joseph Muscat, tweeted: "Hijackers
surrendered, searched and taken in custody".
The Airbus A320 had
been on an internal flight in Libya on Friday morning when it was diverted to
Malta, 500 km (300 miles) north of the Libyan coast, after a man told the crew
he had a hand grenade.
Muscat said the
grenade and two pistols the hijackers were also carrying appeared to be
replicas, according to an initial forensic examination.
A Libyan television
channel reported it had spoken by phone with a hijacker who described himself
as head of a pro-Gaddafi party. Gaddafi was killed in an uprising in 2011, and
Libya has been racked by factional violence since.
With troops
positioned a few hundred meters (yards) away, buses were driven onto the tarmac
at Malta International Airport to carry away 109 passengers, as well as some of
the crew. Television footage showed no signs of struggle or alarm.
After the passengers
had left the plane, a man briefly appeared at the top of the steps with a plain
green flag resembling that of Gaddafi's now-defunct state.
Libya's Channel TV
station said one hijacker, who gave his name as Moussa Shaha, had said by phone
he was the head of Al-Fateh Al-Jadid, or The New Al-Fateh. Al-Fateh is the name
that Gaddafi gave to September, the month he staged a coup in 1969, and the
word came to signify his coming to power.
In a tweet, the TV
station later quoted the hijacker as saying: "We took this measure to
declare and promote our new party."
STANDOFF ON TARMAC
Lawmaker Hadi
al-Saghir told Reuters that Abdusalem Mrabit, a fellow member of Libya's House
of Representatives on the plane, had told him the two hijackers were in their
mid-20s and were from the Tebu ethnic group in southern Libya.
After the standoff
ended peacefully, Muscat told a news conference there had been talks between
Maltese authorities and the Libyan hijackers.
The men had asked
for two Maltese negotiators to board the aircraft, but this was rejected.
"We were not
willing to negotiate until there was a surrender," he said, adding that
the hijackers had not requested asylum.
A senior Libyan
security official told Reuters the first news of the hijack came in a call from
the pilot to the control tower at Tripoli's Mitiga airport.
"Then they lost
communication with him," the official said, speaking on condition of
anonymity. "The pilot tried very hard to have them land at the correct
destination but they refused."
The aircraft,
operated by state-owned Afriqiyah Airways, had been flying from Sebha in
southwest Libya to Tripoli, a trip that would usually take a little over two
hours.
The last major
hijacking on Malta was in 1985, when Palestinians took over an Egyptair plane.
Egyptian commandos stormed the aircraft and dozens of people were killed.
Reuters
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