Daily NEWS Srilanka

It was a hijacking story of an airplane which took prominence in overseas press reports published yesterday. Though reports initially said that it was a terrorist act, later information was revealed that it was something done by a single individual
solely based on some personal matters. It was an Egyptian national named Seif Aldin Mustafa who had been involved act for the sake of seeing his wife and children whom he was unable to set his eyes on and for the purpose of releasing a woman who was in bondage. In the '80s hijacking an Italian plane by Sepala Ekanayaka of Sri Lanka is akin to some similar reasons enacted in this drama too.

Mustafa who got into an internal flight in Egypt managed to scare the authorities by giving the impression that he had explosives hidden in his body and then had proceeded to divert the plane to divert it in a different direction with 55 passengers on board to land in an airport in cloeseby country of Cyprus. Thus he succeeded in drawing the attention of Cypriot leaders to his appeals.

Though a majority of those on board were set free, he kept just 7 persons inside the plane and then threatened that they would not be released until his appeals were granted. One of his requests was that he wishes to see his wife who is supposed to be a Cypriot and his children. He had appealed that they be brought to that place, failing which the letter written by him be at least shown to them, he had pleaded. The 14-page letter written by him was scanned and forwarded to the authorities.

The second request was that a women imprisoned because of political reasons be released. Though the abnormal requests of this individual does not under any circumstances justified, at first sight it nevertheless could be observed as human issues. When checking further about Mustafa it was also exposed that he was a person who had been in jail in Egypt over offences such as drug dealings, housebreaking and for preparing false documents. He had escaped prison in the year 2011 and in 2014 he had been cornered by the police and once again put behind bars for some months.

Mustafa played around by scaring people that he had wrapped a suicide kit round his body and created a big commotion and on the occasion when the last 7 passengers were detained what he had said was that it is necessary for him to settle his problems by confronting and discussing with an officer of the European Commission. Whether it came to pass or not has not been revealed by Cyprus authorities.

Officers on board had one by one been able to make use of the emergency exit to escape in the process and in the end after sending the passengers who were left behind then had surrendered to the police alone. Anyway it is indeed fortunate that this operation ended without any injury or damage. What came to light in the end was that it was a fib he had said that there were explosives in his possession.

Cyprus authorities have taken steps to inspect the vacant plane by using dogs used for that purpose; but nothing of that kind was detected. Egyptian authorities who had taken care to check him before gaining access to the flight was once more surveyed; but nothing was found. Seif Aldin Mustafa is presently under custody.