ITALY/TURKEY: Turkish interior ministry says a second man was invovled in the hijacking of a plane diverted from Turkey to Italy.

Italian emergency services on Wednesday (October 4) released video filmed as a Turkish hijacker gave himself up to police in Brindisi on Tuesday (October 3, 2006). The pictures from the Italian fire brigade were taken from the foot of the plane steps and showed 27-year-old Turk, Hakan Ekinci descending the steps with his hands in the air. Ekinci was unarmed when he hijacked a Turkish Airlines flight leaving Tirana, Albania for Istanbul on Tuesday but threatened to blow himself up if the pilot did not divert the flight to Italy. All 107 passengers and six crew on the Boeing 737 were unharmed in the hijack which ended with the man's arrest in Brindisi airport late in the evening. "On the plane we were actually quite confused because nobody was telling us what was happening. We were just told to wait on the plane. Yeah the crew just told us to wait," one passenger from Singapore told journalists after arriving in Istanbul. In Rome, Italian interior minister Giuliano Amato told Italy's Senate on Wednesday: "The peculiar thing about this hijack was that it was done by a lone, unarmed man," Amato said Ekinci travelled to Albania in May and requested asylum there on the grounds that he was viewed as a deserter from the Turkish army and would be punished if he went home. But Albania refused his request and he was expelled from the country on the Turkish Airlines flight from Tirana to Istanbul. Ekinci entered the cockpit when a flight assistant left the door open soon after take take-off, Amato said. He then told the pilot he would blow himself, or perhaps that he had accomplices on board who would do so, if his orders were not followed. Showing he was prepared for the hijacking, when the pilot transmitted a code which alerts air traffic controllers to emergency situations, Ekinci told him to insert the more specific code which refers to a hijack. "The pilot said he knew procedures and meaning of codes and said he learned it all on the Internet," Amato told the Senate. "I dont know how many of you would have known how to do that, I certainly wouldn't have." At the Vatican, where Pope Benedict gave his weekly audience on Wednesday and those close to the Pope said they did not believe the episode would have any influence on the pontiff's trip to Turkey which is scheduled for November 28. The unarmed Turk told the crew he had three accomplices who would blow up the aeroplane unless he could deliver a message to the Pope, the pilot said on Wednesday. Mursel Gokalp, the Turkish airlines captain in charge of the hijacked plane, emerged at Istanbul airport on Wednesday (October 4) to speak about the ordeal. "I asked him to be calm. He said his only aim was to deliver a message to Pope. If this demand is not satisfied, his three friends would blow up the plane. I got the impression that he was checking for his friends when he look to cabin from cockpits peek hole. And I think he was really professional, as he knows all the (aviation) codes, and determined. And as a captain pilot I did what needs to be done according to the international emergency procedures." Gokalp did not say what was on a note Ekinci showed him. Turkish media said Ekinci was a Christian convert who wanted to avoid military service in Turkey and wrote to Pope Benedict several months ago for help to avoid serving in a "Muslim army". Confusion remains over the number of hijackers as later on Wednesday Turkey's Justice ministry said two Turks were involved. The ministry named the two as Hakan Ekinci and Mehmet Ertas. Italian and Turkish authorities had earlier said only a lone, unarmed Turk hijacked the flight from Tirana to Istanbul and which was later diverted to Italy.

ITN Source | October 4, 2006

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