Hijacker’s Life Term Reduced to 5 Years
From Reuters
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka —
A Sri Lankan, jailed for life in 1983 for hijacking an Italian airliner and collecting a ransom, saw his sentence reduced Thursday to five years.
Sepala Ekanayake, 37, seized an Alitalia Boeing 747 with 261 people aboard on a flight from Rome to Bangkok afer threatening to blow up the plane with explosives strapped to his chest. His demands--for a $300,000 ransom, to be united with his estranged Italian wife and their son and safe passage to Sri Lanka--were granted after the plane landed in Bangkok.
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