Hijacker Was Turk With Fake Gun
A 20-year-old Turk who sympathizes with Chechnya’s struggle for independence from Russia and was armed with a fake pistol carried out the hijacking of a Turkish Cypriot airliner to Munich, police said Saturday.
The hijacker, Ramazan Aydin, was a waiter who reportedly told the pilot he had watched his best friend die in Chechnya.
The aircraft had been seized on its way to Istanbul from Ercan airport in northern Cyprus. The hijacker forced it to divert to Sofia, Bulgaria, for refueling and then to fly to Munich.
Police said Aydin had given himself up without any resistance.
Aydin apparently fooled authorities into thinking there was a whole gang of hijackers by referring to three accomplices.
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