Kuwaiti Speaks from Cockpit : Second Relative of Emir Backs Hijackers’ Demand

Hijackers holding a Kuwaiti jumbo jet at Algiers airport put one of their royal hostages on the cockpit radio Tuesday to make another appeal to Kuwait to meet their demand for the release of 17 convicted terrorists.

As the hijacking entered its third week, there was no outward sign of progress in the negotiations to end the ordeal for the 31 hostages, who include three members of Kuwait’s ruling family.

However, Algerian mediators met with the hijackers in an unusual early-morning session today, and the Kuwaiti minister of state for services, Issa Ibrahim Mazidi, said his government expected a breakthrough soon.

After killing two hostages in Cyprus last week and repeatedly warning that they would blow up the plane if their demands were not met, the hijackers appeared less than eager to carry out their threats. They have promised to commit no violence while on Algerian soil, and they seem to be in no hurry to leave.

200 Journalists Nearby

True to their publicity-conscious form, however, the hijackers have made sure that the more than 200 journalists watching the plane from a makeshift camp near the tarmac have something new to write about every day.

On Monday, it was a statement read by Fadel al Sabah, a 33-year-old businessman distantly related to Sheik Jabar al Ahmed al Sabah, the emir of Kuwait. Speaking in an exhausted and barely intelligible voice, he appealed to the Kuwaiti government to release the 17 Shia Muslim terrorists whose freedom the hijackers are seeking.

On Tuesday, Fadel al Sabah’s 20-year-old sister Anware, speaking in a clear and calm voice, made a similar appeal that was introduced by one of the hijackers as being “a statement for the press.”

“We want to tell our family that my sister and I and all the passengers are well, even though psychologically we are tired and Fadel is deteriorating,” she said. “I hope my family and government will hurry to free the prisoners, or else we all be in danger.”

Anware al Sabah and her 22-year-old sister, Ibtesan, are the only women still on board the plane, which was hijacked on a Kuwait-bound flight from Bangkok April 5.

The eight hijackers, who are believed to be Shia Muslims closely affiliated with Iran, diverted the plane first to the northeastern Iranian city of Mashhad, where they released 57 foreign and female captives.

They then flew to Cyprus, where they killed two hostages and released another 13 before flying to Algiers last Wednesday.

A number of the passengers freed in Iran and Cyprus said that at least one and possibly two of the hijackers boarded the plane in Mashhad, bringing machine guns, explosives and other equipment on board with them.

The decision to fly to Algiers was worked out in negotiations with the hijackers before they left Cyprus. The Algerians consented in the belief that a deal had been arranged under which the hijackers would release their remaining hostages upon arrival, informed sources here said.

No Results

But the hijackers either never intended to go through with this arrangement or changed their minds upon arrival.

At one point during the negotiations Tuesday, the control tower radioed the hijackers to say that a “very important person” wanted to see them.

A middle-aged man wearing a gray suit boarded the plane and talked to the hijackers for about 15 minutes. His identity was not revealed, but the official Algerian news agency said later that he was not the “important personality” mentioned by the control tower.