Hijacked Plane To Protest Pope?

Posted on October 3, 2006

Update: Not to protest the pope, but to desperately get his attention. And not for the reasons you would think.

Earlier reports on Tuesday that the hijackers were protesting Pope Benedict XVI’s planned visit to Turkey were apparently incorrect; authorities now say that the hijackers have requested political asylum.
Turkish officials said one of the hijackers, identified as Hasan Ekinci, wrote a letter to the pope in August asking for help in avoiding service in the Turkish army.
“I am a Christian and don’t want to serve a Muslim army,” he wrote, adding that he had been attending church since 1998.

Brietbart:

A Turkish Airlines plane carrying more than 100 passengers from Tirana, Albania, to Istanbul, was hijacked Tuesday and landed at Italy’s Brindisi airport, company spokesman Ali Genc said.
The plane was hijacked in Greek airspace, Genc said.

Turkish television channel NTV, quoting unnamed security officials, reported that the plane was hijacked by two Turks to protest Pope Benedict XVI’s planned visit to Turkey next month.

A spokesman for the Greek military’s general staff told The Associated Press that four Greek fighter jets had been scrambled to shadow the plane after it issued a distress signal over Greek airspace.

The good news is no one was hurt.

Candan Karlitekin, chairman of Turkish Airlines’ board of directors, said nobody had been hurt and the hijackers were apparently not threatening passengers.

“The passengers are not under any threat,” he was quoted as saying by The Associated Press.

“They will surrender, they declared that they will surrender the moment they hijacked the plane.”

So what was the point? to pass along a message to the Pope. I’m with Allah Pundit….I think he already got that message.

» Filed Under News, War On Terror