BRUSSELS, March 11: Some 60 Iranian protesters were detained by Belgian police early on Friday after staging a sit-in on a plane at Brussels airport for nearly 16 hours overnight, officials said.

The majority of the activists on the Lufthansa plane, which had arrived from Frankfurt on Thursday, surrendered to police shortly before dawn after being threatened with arrest, federal police spokesman Els Cleemput told journalists.

About five protesters refused to leave the aircraft voluntarily and had to be carried off the plane, according to another police spokesman, Vincent Olivier.

“The real terrorists are the ayatollahs of Iran,” said one placard brandished by the protesters after they disembarked, while a written statement read: “We are the messengers of peace. We are against global terrorism.”

Meanwhile, the German airline said it would take legal action against the protesters to recover some of the costs of rushing an aircraft to Brussels to replace the blocked plane.

“We are going to seek compensation from the activists,” said Lufthansa spokeswoman Wencke Lemmes, cited by the Belga news agency, although she declined to name a figure.

Belgian authorities had negotiated late into the night with several dozen of the protesters who refused to leave the aircraft in what appeared to be a protest against the European Union’s conciliatory policies towards Iran.

The plane had arrived from Frankfurt on Thursday afternoon. The protesters refused to leave the aircraft, but shortly after the incident began they allowed other passengers and crew to get off without incident.

A young Iranian, who spoke to reporters at Brussels airport on behalf of the passengers, said the action had been under preparation for five months by a London-based Iranian monarchist group, “Azarakhsh”.—AFP