Sudanese plane hijacked to Chad, hijacker arrested

Jan 24, 2007 (N’DJAMENA) — An armed Sudanese man hijacked a Sudanese airliner on Wednesday which flew to neighbouring Chad, where the hijacker was arrested and the passengers safely released, Chadian officials said.

They said the hijacker, a young man who said he was persecuted in Sudan, had demanded to be flown to Britain but the passenger plane, an Air West Boeing 737, did not have enough fuel and flew to the Chadian capital N’Djamena instead.

The plane, which was diverted while on a domestic flight from Khartoum to Sudan’s conflict-torn west Darfur region, landed safely at N’Djamena with 103 people on board.

“He (the hijacker) has been arrested and will answer for his actions … Chad is not a sanctuary for terrorists,” Chad’s Infrastructure Minister Adoum Younousmi told Reuters.

An Air West official had said earlier in Khartoum that the hijacker had requested asylum from the French embassy in Chad.

Younousmi said the man had requested guarantees from the French embassy before he gave himself up, but that Chadian authorities refused to accept this.

“Chad alone is handling this crisis,” Younousmi said. “There’s no question of involving different foreign embassies,” he added.

He said the hijacker had been armed with a pistol.

Sudanese air officials said the man had been carrying an AK-47 rifle and had diverted the airliner 30 minutes after takeoff from Khartoum.

There were 95 passengers and eight crew on board, a Sudanese civil aviation spokesman said.

It was not immediately clear how the weapon got on board the aircraft but Sudanese security is lax, especially on internal flights.

With a four-year-old conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region, which borders Chad, guns are easily accessible.

Chadian-Sudanese relations are strained as Khartoum and N’Djamena have accused each other of supporting insurgents who aim to topple their governments.

(Reuters)