World

U.K. Wants To Send Hostages Home

February 6, 2000 / 9:20 AM EST / AP

After nearly half the freed hostages from an Afghan jet hijacking sought asylum in Britain, the government is taking a tough stance to show that seizing a plane is not the way to win refuge.

After the four-day hijacking, hostages spent their first night of freedom at a four-star airport Hilton Hotel, but Britain's top law enforcement official warned the 74 asylum-seekers among them not to get too comfortable.

Home Secretary Jack Straw told legislators Thursday Britain would try to deport them, if the law allowed.

"I personally will make the determination of any application for asylum made by persons on board this aircraft," said Straw, who is responsible for law enforcement.

"Subject to compliance with all legal requirements, I would wish to see removed from this country all those on the plane as soon as reasonably practicable," he said.

Straw's stance was backed by Prime Minister Tony Blair, whose spokesman said a clear signal must be sent out that hijacking was not the way to obtain asylum in Britain.

Amnesty International urged the government to consider Afghanistan's poor record on human rights, which it said included the disappearance of political opponents, massacres and punishments including floggings, amputations and executions.

But opposition politicians in Britain suggested the hijackers had been attracted to Britain by a reputation for lenience.

"Why the United Kingdom? How many European Convention on Human Rights signatories did that plane fly over on its journey from Moscow to the U.K.?" Conservative Party lawmaker Anne Widdecombe said.

The hostages, who police described as being in "remarkably good health," were transferred to the hotel after the crisis ended peacefully before sunrise Thursday.

At 3:50 a.m., about 85 captives - mostly wo6men and 21 children - streamed down the aircraft's rear stairs. The rest, including the hijackers, filed down the stairs two hours later.

Police arrested 21 people on board in connection with the hijacking on Thursday and another man early Friday. Only 70 of the former hostages said they wanted to return home.

The hijackers took over the Ariana 727 jet early Sunday during what should have been a short domestic flight from the Afghan capital of Kabul to the northern town of Mazar-e-Sharif. It stopped over in Uzbekistan, Kazakstan and Russia, before reaching Stansted, 25 miles north of London.

Throughout tense negotiations with Essex police, the hijackers never gave a clear explanation of their aims, said David Stevens, chief constable of Essex County police.

"It became clear in the last hour of the negotiations that they were expressing concern about the political situation in Afghanistan," he said. "For the first 75 hours, they didn't talk about the political situation at all."

The hard-line Taliban government in Afghanistan thanked British authorities fr ending the hijacking safely, and asked that the plane - one of only nine in state-run Ariana Airline's aging fleet - and its passengers be returned.