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Al-Ahram Weekly 21 - 27 October 1999 Issue No. 452 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 21 - 27 October 1999 Issue No. 452
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Profile Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Hijack ends
A LONE hijacker armed with a knife surrendered to German police in Hamburg Tuesday night, three hours after commandeering an EgyptAir flight Boeing 737-500 from Istanbul to Cairo. According to Egyptian diplomatic sources in Germany, the hijacker is Khalifa Fadlallah, an Egyptian in his early twenties who owns a construction company in Suez.He seized control of the plane soon after it left Istanbul's Attaturk airport en route to Cairo. As the three-hour drama ended with the release of the 46 passengers and nine crew members unharmed, the man's motives still remain hazy, though it is reported he was hoping to seek asylum in a Western country.
Fadlallah, who had arrived in Germany from Turkey without a passport, was returned by the German authorities to his point of departure on 12 October. In Istanbul the Egyptian Embassy provided Fadlallah with travel documents and he was being deported back home when he hijacked the plane. He had left Egypt for Turkey on 6 September.
According to Captain Hazem El-Abady, the plane's pilot, the hijacker had requested political asylum in Britain, Canada, Germany or the US. The pilot convinced the hijacker that the plane did not have enough fuel to reach London and headed instead for Hamburg.
"It appears like an adventurer's escapade. He didn't seem to know what he was doing," said the Turkish minister of transport. The only injuries were some grazes suffered by the co-pilot.
Mohamed Fahim Rayan, chairman of EgyptAir, said that those responsible for the plane's security will be questioned to find out how the hijacker managed to enter the cockpit.
Habibie out
EXPLOSIONS and clashes rocked Jakarta yesterday as tens of thousands of angry supporters of defeated presidential candidate, opposition leader Megawati Sukarnoputri, stormed angrily through the streets around the parliament complex, burning tyres and stoning security forces, who answered back by firing tear gas and warning shots. A car exploded a few metres away from the legislature building, a few hours after the Islamic leader Abdurrahman Wahid, 59, was elected as the new Indonesian president for a five-year term by the People's Consultative Assembly, beating the popular Sukarnoputri by a margin of 60 votes.Wahid is to succeed B J Habibie who bowed out gracefully on Tuesday after losing a vote of confidence in parliament on his accountability report. Sukarnoputri's Indonesian Democracy Struggle Party said it would abide by the results, but party supporters disagreed, demanding that the majority in the June elections should be reflected in the presidential elections as well. However, under the two-tiered election system the results of the parliamentary elections are not linked to the presidential elections, which are conducted by the 700-member national assembly.
Open passage
A SAFE passage route allowing Palestinians to travel from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip will open next week after Israeli and Palestinian negotiators overcame the last hurdles delaying the opening, Israel's Public Security Ministry said yesterday.The safe passage route had been due to open on 3 October but a dispute over security aspects led to extended negotiations, Reuters reported.
Palestinian officials say around 20,000 people in the Gaza Strip and hundreds in the West Bank have applied for cards to cross the safe passage.
