"Turkey plane hijacker had Al Qaeda contact report says"

Monday, August 20, 2007

Turkey plane hijacker had Al Qaeda contact report says
Agence France Presse


ANKARA --  One of the two men who hijacked a Turkish plane with more than
140 people on board this weekend before surrendering hours later, had
contact with an Al Qaeda figure, the Anatolia news agency reported. 

Citing police sources, the report said that Mommen Abdel Aziz Talikh, a
33-year-old Egyptian passport-holder of Palestinian origin, had once stayed
in the same prison with an Al Qaeda figure serving a life sentence in Saudi
Arabia. 

Turkish officials had earlier said that Talikh held a Syrian passport, but
was believed to have Palestinian roots. The plane's passenger manifest gave
his age as 25. 

The Anatolia agency said that Talikh and his accomplice, Turkish national
Mehmet Resat Ozlu, commandeered the plane, and tried to divert it to Iran as
part of their plan to go to Afghanistan and join Al Qaeda. 

The pair met a year ago in the breakaway Turkish statelet on Cyprus, in the
north of the divided island, and shared a flat for the past month. 

Turkish newspapers described Ozlu as the sixth of 12 children of a farmer
living in a small village in Sanliurfa province in Turkey's mainly Kurdish
southeast. 

He went to the the self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus
(TRNC) to study at university, but failed his classes, the reports said. 

Anatolia said the two men were expected to be brought before a judge
Wednesday to be formally charged. 

Talikh and Ozlu hijacked the plane, operated by private Turkish carrier,
Atlas Jet, Saturday during a flight from Ercan airport in the TRNC to
Istanbul. 

They told the passengers that they were members of Al Qaeda and that they
were armed with a bomb, but Turkish Cypriot police said Sunday in a
statement, carried by Anatolia, that it turned out to be a piece of
modelling clay. 

Media reports said the hijackers had stuck pieces of wire to it to make it
look realistic. 

Passengers said the two men told them the hijacking was aimed at protesting
the policies of the United States, and demanded that the plane to be
diverted to Tehran or Syria. 

The pilots said they had to refuel, and landed at the airport of the
Mediterranean resort of Antalya in Turkey. 

Shortly afterward, the pilots jumped out of the cockpit window and most of
the passengers escaped from the rear door as the hijackers were releasing
women and children through the front exit. 

A few passengers and crew remained hostage for several hours before the
hijackers were persuaded to release them and turn themselves in. 

Atlas Jet said the plane was carrying a total of 136 passengers and six
crew, but officials later said there were 140 passengers, including eight
children, and five crew. 

The incident was the second hijacking involving a Turkish plane this year. 

In April, a 39-year-old man threatened to blow up a passenger plane on a
domestic flight from the southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakir to Istanbul
with 180 people on board, and forced it to land in Ankara. 

He surrendered to police shortly afterward, and was found to be unarmed.

 Do you have an opinion about this story?
Share it with other readers in our CAA Discussion Forums

http://www.californiaaviation.org/dcfp/dcboard.php


*****************************************