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Police arrest Iraqi who attempted to hijack plane |
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September 29, 2000
AMMAN (AP) - An Iraqi man who made a halfhearted attempt to hijack a Jordanian plane has been arrested, Jordanian civil aviation said Thursday. The Royal Jordanian flight carrying 119 people from San'a, Yemen, landed safely at Amman airport early Thursday, the director general of Jordan's Civil Aviation Authority, Capt. Jihad Irsheid, said. Irsheid told The Associated Press the Iraqi had surrendered to aircraft security without any violence. Shortly after the plane took off from San'a, "he sent a letter to the captain through an attendant saying that he was assigned to hijack the plane and to kill the pilot, but that he doesn't want to do so and wants to surrender," Irsheid said. He said the hijacker claimed to have hand grenades, but "investigations afterward proved they were fake." Security officials said the Iraqi was being interrogated to determine his motive and who was behind the attempt. The officials insisted on anonymity. No other details were immediately available. It was the third hijack attempt involving Jordan in three months. On July 5, security guards shot and killed a Syrian man who tossed a grenade in Royal Jordanian plane flying to Syria, wounding several people as he attempted to divert the plane to Germany. On Sept. 14, an Iraqi armed with a knife forced a Qatar Airways plane bound for Amman to land in Saudi Arabia. He surrendered to Saudi police, saying he was afraid Jordan would hand him over to Iraq. |