dismiss links with rebels

Sun Air Executive Director Murtada Hassan dismissed links between Darfur rebel movement and the hijackers of a Sudanese plane.

Yesterday

Hassan said their motives were personal and that they had no connection with any political or rebel groups. Due to security reasons, he said he could not reveal what the personal matters were.

said officials at the airport in Kufra, Libya, informed him of the surrender. He said there were only two hijackers but that others may have slipped out with the 87 passengers who were released earlier.

The number and identities of the hijackers, who demanded maps and fuel to fly to Paris, has been unclear.

Officials at the airport in Libya had said they were Darfur rebels, but

Hijackers commandeered the Boeing 737 jetliner, which was carrying 95 passengers and crew, soon after it took off Tuesday from the southern Darfur town of Nyala, not far from a refugee camp that the Sudanese military attacked on Monday. Rebels took up arms in 2003 against the Khartoum’s government, which has been accused of unleashing militia fighters in response.

Sun Air Executive Director Murtada Hassan said officials at the airport in Kufra, Libya, informed him of the surrender. He said there were only two hijackers but that others may have slipped out with the 87 passengers who were released earlier.

The number and identities of the hijackers, who demanded maps and fuel to fly to Paris, has been unclear.

Officials at the airport in Libya had said they were Darfur rebels, but Hassan said their motives were personal and that they had no connection with any political or rebel groups. Due to security reasons, he said he could not reveal what the personal matters were.

Hijackers commandeered the Boeing 737 jetliner, which was carrying 95 passengers and crew, soon after it took off Tuesday from the southern Darfur town of Nyala, not far from a refugee camp that the Sudanese military attacked on Monday. Rebels took up arms in 2003 against the Khartoum’s government, which has been accused of unleashing militia fighters in response.

The plane, which had been en route to the Sudanese capital of Khartoum, was diverted to a World War II-era airstrip in Libya’s Sahara desert oasis of Kufra.

Some 500 security personnel and police descended on the plane as negotiators worked to free the passengers, said Sudan’s consul in Kufra, Mohammed al-Bila Othman, according to Libya’s official JANA news agency.