Sweden Sends Hijacker Back to Soviet Union
A Soviet teen-ager who hijacked a domestic Soviet airliner to Sweden by threatening the pilot with a fake hand grenade was extradited to the Soviet Union on Tuesday.
Dmitri Semyonov was believed the first person extradited from Sweden to the Soviet Union since the end of World War II, when some Baltic refugees were sent back. The Soviets claimed the refugees were Nazi sympathizers.
Semyonov, 17, left on a scheduled flight at midday, escorted by four Soviet police officers, the national news agency TT said.
Semyonov hijacked the aircraft June 9 with 114 passengers and seven crew members aboard, saying he wanted to leave his home in Byelorussia after a quarrel with his father.
He was the first of five Soviet youths to hijack Soviet domestic airliners to Sweden or Finland since June 9. All of the hijackers falsely claimed to be carrying explosives, and all surrendered peacefully.
Sweden’s acting prime minister, Lena Hjelm-Wallen, said the government’s decision to grant the Soviet extradition request was “a signal to would-be hijackers.”
Swedish and international pilot organizations had called for the extraditions to discourage the growing number of hijackings from the Soviet Union.
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