2 in Crew Escape; Hijacker Seized in Germany : Terrorism: Egyptian demanded release of Muslim cleric linked to N.Y. bombing. He threatened to blow up KLM jetliner.

A hostage pilot and steward escaped through the cockpit window of their commandeered Dutch airliner early today, dramatically ending an 11-hour standoff with an Arab hijacker demanding freedom for a Muslim cleric linked to the deadly World Trade Center bombing.

Special police commandos stormed the KLM Boeing 737-400, which had been diverted to Duesseldorf, and overpowered the unidentified Egyptian hijacker at 2 a.m. (5 p.m. PDT) after the hostage crew members scrambled to safety while the hijacker was in the lavatory, authorities said.

No one was injured during the long war of nerves on the tarmac of the airport, where the plane landed after the hijacker passed a note to the pilot en route from Tunis, Tunisia, to Amsterdam on Sunday afternoon.

Experts were still searching the aircraft two hours after the hostage drama ended, but no weapons or bomb had been found, police spokesman Ulrich Rungwerth said.

The hijacker had threatened to blow up the plane unless his demands were met by 9 a.m. (midnight PDT).

Rungwerth said little was known about the hijacker, whom he described as a “calm, seemingly unaggressive man between 50 and 55 years old.”

Negotiators speaking through an Arabic interpreter persuaded the hijacker to release all 135 passengers and four of the seven crew members about two hours after the plane landed in Duesseldorf.

But the hijacker kept the pilot, co-pilot and steward on board, demanding first to be flown to New York and, later, to Sweden, Rungwerth said in a telephone interview.

He was “demanding the release of the blind Muslim sheik jailed in New York in the World Trade Center bombing case,” Rungwerth said.

Details of the hostage crew’s daring escape were sketchy, but Rungwerth indicated that it was coordinated with police negotiators.

Rungwerth said “the highest reaches of the German government” were in touch with U.S. authorities during the standoff but had made no request for the release of Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman. The cleric is jailed in New York facing deportation to his native Egypt on charges of violating immigration law. Several of his followers have been arrested in connection with the World Trade Center bombing that killed six people and injured more than 1,000 on Feb. 26.

It was not clear whether the hijacker was known to U.S. authorities or had any links to the New York City bombing.

Sunday’s drama began around 3:05 p.m. (6:05 a.m. PDT) when a crew member delivered a note from a passenger to the captain, according to KLM spokesman Peter Offerman in Amsterdam.

Written in English, the note threatened to “damage the plane in an explosion” unless the flight was diverted to New York, Offerman said in a telephone interview.

Following standard procedure, Offerman said, the pilot persuaded the hijacker to permit him to land at the nearest airport. The plane touched down 15 minutes later at Duesseldorf’s airport.

The first sign of a breakthrough came around 10:30 p.m. (1:30 p.m. PDT), when co-pilot Jacqueline Vollenbregt was released in a surprise move by the hijacker.

But at the same time, the hijacker issued the ultimatum that the sheik be freed within 12 hours.