August 24, 2007	Friday	Sha’aban 10, 1428

ANKARA, Aug 23: A Turkish court on Thursday charged an Egyptian with alleged ties to Al Qaeda and a Turkish accomplice over the hijacking of a plane carrying more than 140 people, the Anatolia news agency said.

The two men said in their testimonies they had planned to divert the plane to Iran and then travel on to the “jihad region” in Afghanistan with the help of radical Islamist groups Hezbollah and Hamas, judicial officials told Anatolia.

The court in the southern city of Antalya charged Momen Abdul Aziz Talikh, an Egyptian passport-holder of Palestinian origin, and Mehmet Resat Ozlu with “hijacking a plane, being members of an armed terrorist organization and restricting personal freedom.” Talikh and Ozlu were sent to the local prison pending trial.

The pair on Saturday commandeered the plane operated by Turkish private carrier Atlas Jet shortly after it took off from the breakaway Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) for Istanbul.

Claiming they were Al Qaeda members and wielding a fake bomb made of modelling clay, the hijackers demanded the plane be diverted to Iran or Syria, but the pilots landed in Antalya on the ground that they had to refuel.

The pilots fled from the cockpit and most of the passengers escaped from the rear door as the hijackers were releasing women and children through the front exit.

A few passengers and crew remained hostage for several hours before the hijackers surrendered.

“I received training at Al Qaeda but I have not taken part in any (violent) act,” the 33-year-old Talikh was quoted as saying in his testimony.

“I was sure that Hamas and Hezbollah would help us in Iran” to avoid imprisonment and go to Afghanistan, he said.

Talikh was described as the son of a Palestinian father and an Egyptian mother, whose family currently resides in Saudi Arabia.

He said he met with Ozlu in the TRNC, where he moved last year to join his brother, a university student in the breakaway statelet. The two began to share a flat in the port city of Kyrenia in July.

Officials told Anatolia that Talikh appeared to be “a hardline (Palestinian) nationalist rather than a religious extremist.” The two hijackers told the prosecutor that Turkey was not their target and that they regretted their act.

Citing police sources, Anatolia said that Talikh had been trained in an Al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan in 2004 and had spent two months in a Saudi prison after being detained for participating in a rally in Yemen.

During his time in jail Talikh met several Al Qaeda members.

The agency did not specify what rally Talikh attended and when he had served time in Saudi Arabia.—AFP

Turkish police have contacted Interpol and other international organisations to get more information on Talikh and his alleged ties to Al Qaeda.—AFP