Malta plane hijack ends peacefully

Hijackers forced an airliner to land in Malta yesterday then freed all their hostages unharmed and surrendered after declaring their 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 into custody".

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The Airbus A320 had been on an internal flight in Libya yesterday morning when it was diverted to Malta, 500 km (300 miles) north of the Libyan coast, after one man told crew he had a hand grenade.

Initial reports said one of the men had told crew he was "pro-Gaddafi" and that he was willing to free all passengers if his demands were met. It was unclear what the demands were.

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.

Buses were driven onto the tarmac at Malta International Airport to carry away passengers, as well as some of the crew. Television footage showed no signs of struggle or alarm, Reuters reports.

After 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."

AFP reports that the two hijackers have asked for political asylum in Malta, Libya's foreign minister said.

Taher Siala, the foreign minister of Libya's internationally backed Government of National Accord, also said that the hijackers have said they want to set up a pro-Gaddafi political party.

The plane landed at 11:32 am (1032 GMT) in Malta.

After more than an hour on the tarmac, the door of the Airbus A320 opened and a first group of women and children were seen descending a mobile staircase.

Dozens more passengers were released minutes later following negotiations that Maltese government sources said were led by the head of Malta's military.

In all there were 111 passengers, including 28 women and a baby, on board, as well as seven crew members.

STANDOFF ON TARMAC

MP 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.

Troops were positioned a few hundred metres (yards) from the plane as it stood on the tarmac. Several other flights at the airport were cancelled or diverted.

A senior Libyan security official told Reuters that when the plane was still in flight yesterday morning the pilot told the control tower at Tripoli's Mitiga airport it had been hijacked.

"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 had been flying from Sebha in southwest Libya to Tripoli for state-owned Afriqiyah Airways, a trip that would usually take a little over two hours.

The government of Malta said Prime Minister Muscat had discussed the hijack with Libyan Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj by phone, and a negotiating team was formed at the airport. Britain offered Malta help with dealing with the incident.

Malta lies only 350km north of Tripoli, and even closer to Tunisia, and has been a destination for hijackers before, The Guardian writes.

In 1985 an EgyptAir flight from Athens to Cairo was forced to land in Malta, where a 24-hour ordeal ended with the death of 60 hostages, many killed when Egyptian commandos stormed the plane in what was considered a botched operation.

A decade earlier the then prime minister Dom Mintoff negotiated a happier conclusion to another hijacking. A KLM flight from Amsterdam to Tokyo was hijacked over Iraqi airspace, then flew to Malta after being refused landing permission anywhere else.

Mintoff secured the release of 247 passengers and 8 crew in return for fuel, and the plane headed to Dubai where the remaining hostages were released, wrote the newspaper.