World

Hijacker Feared Iraqi Imprisonment

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

September 14, 2000 / 10:33 AM EDT / CBS

A man with a knife hijacked a Qatar Airways plane en route Thursday from the Gulf nation to Jordan with 144 people aboard and ordered it flown to Saudi Arabia, where the hijacker surrendered.

Ten hours after their ordeal began, the passengers arrived at Amman's Queen Alia International Airport at 12:07 a.m. Friday. Capt. Jihad Irsheid, director general of the Jordanian Civil Aviation Authority, said all aboard were in good condition.

Jordanian officials and a passenger aboard Flight QR 404 said the hijacker was an Iraqi armed with a knife.

It wasn't clear why the hijacker had insisted on going to Saudi Arabia. Jordanian Transport Minister Mohammad Kaladeh said the hijacker "had political motives."

He would not elaborate, but other government officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, suggested the hijacker was an Iraqi dissident concerned that Jordanian officials would send him home.

A passenger named the hijacker as Kamal Ussama Adel Hussein.

Passenger Nidal Hajbi, a 31-year-old Jordanian, said he heard the pilot saying that the hijacker had been imprisoned in Qatar and was afraid that the Jordanian authorities would detain him and hand him over to Iraq.

He said the man had panicked and tried to stab a crew member before the captain calmed him down.

"The captain handled the situation perfectly. He calmed the hijacker down and told him that he'll do whatever he wants," Hajbi told Reuters. "He did not look like a hijacker. He was scared and shaking."

Abdullah al-Manae, spokesman for Qatar Airways, said 133 passengers and 11 crew members were aboard the Airbus 300, which was hijacked during a two-and-half hour flight from Qatar's capital, Doha, to Amman.

Saber Tarawneh, a Jordanian passenger who sat next to the hijacker in the economy cabin, described him as a short, thin man in his early 30s who "looked uncomfortable and worried" from the time the plane took off.

"He was simply agitated," Tarawneh said. "He was nervously shaking his legs while sitting down and often went to the toilet in the first half-hour after we left Doha."

"I thought it was his first time on a plane and he was afraid," he said. "I tried to speak to him to comfort him, but he refused to talk back with me."

Haifa Abu Ghazaleh, also a Jordanian passenger, said she saw the hijacker go into the toilet in his head-to-toe white Arab gown and come out in dark pants and a shirt. "I then saw him heading toward the cockpit with something in his hand," she said.

Later, she said, "we heard the pilot announcing that there was a passenger who was insisting on going to Saudi Arabia." She and others aboard said they heard the hijacker threaten the pilot in an Iraqi accent.

She said the plane changed course and headed to Hael, which is 250 miles north of the Saudi capital, Riyadh.

The plane was surrounded by Saudi authorities immediately after landing at the airport iHael, Saudi officials said.

Al-Jizawi said a senior Saudi officer boarded the plane and the hijacker disembarked with him shortly afterward. "The passengers and crew disembarked after that and Saudi authorities carried out a thorough check of all the baggage," he said.

An ambulance was at the Hael airport and one passenger received medical treatment, according to Saudi officials.

Ghassan Salem, Qatar Airways' operations manager, said the hijacker would be taken to Qatar for questioning and any legal action.

Qatar Airways said the crew had been flown back to Doha, the capital of Qatar, to be debriefed about the hijacking. Thursday's hijacking was the first of a Qatar Airways aircraft since the carrier was formed in 1994.