Italy to prosecute Turkish hijacker despite asylum plea

WORLD / Europe

Italy to prosecute Turkish hijacker despite asylum plea

(AP)
Updated: 2006-10-05 08:58

BRINDISI, Italy -- Italian officials intend to prosecute a Turkish man
for hijacking an airliner, they have said, despite his appeal for
political asylum on the grounds that he is being persecuted as a
Christian in Muslim Turkey.

"Even a bicycle thief can ask for political asylum. But at this moment
this doesn't mean anything," Brindisi prosecutor Giuseppe Giannuzzi said
Wednesday.

He added that his office was also looking into whether the hijacker,
Hakan Ekinci, could be charged with terrorism.

The Turkish Airlines Boeing 737-400 with 113 people aboard was hijacked
Tuesday during a flight from Tirana, Albania, to Istanbul, Turkey. It
landed in the southern Italian Adriatic port city of Brindisi after
Italian air force fighter jets escorted the aircraft there.

Italian officials said Ekinci, who was unarmed, slipped into the cockpit
and handed the pilot a note, claiming that he had a message for Pope
Benedict XVI and that other hijackers aboard another, unspecified plane
would blow it up unless his message was delivered.

"He immediately said he had a message to deliver to the pope and that he
was willing to cooperate," Brindisi Prefect Mario Tafaro told The
Associated Press.

The pilot, Mursel Gokalp, told reporters in Istanbul that "he convinced
me that he had three accomplices on the plane with plastic explosives
strapped to their body by frequently opening the cockpit door and
pretending as if he was coordinating with his friends."

His top wish was to get his message to the pontiff.

"He was obsessed with speaking to the pope, to say that he wanted to be
protected, that he had embraced this (Christian) religion," Giannuzzi
said.

The case was marked by confusion from the start. Officials in Turkey
initially said the plane had been hijacked by a group protesting the
pope's upcoming visit to Turkey, but later retracted that version when it
became clear that Ekinci had acted alone.

On Wednesday, Turkey's justice minister claimed that Hakan Ekinci was not
the sole hijacker but had an accomplice. However, officials in Italy
denied this and Turkey later retracted the claim of a second hijacker.

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