{"id":202473,"date":"2016-03-29T09:20:01","date_gmt":"2016-03-29T09:20:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=202473"},"modified":"2016-03-29T09:20:01","modified_gmt":"2016-03-29T09:20:01","slug":"egyptair-hijack-larnaca-hijacking-not-terrorism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=202473","title":{"rendered":"EgyptAir hijack: Larnaca hijacking ‘not terrorism’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry said in a statement: ‘He’s not a terrorist, he’s an idiot. Terrorists are crazy but they aren’t stupid. This guy is,’ according to Cairo-based journalist\u00a0Ruth Michaelson.<\/p>\n

Egyptian media reports that Samaha has dual US-Egyptian citizenship, and is a professor of veterinary medicine at Alexandria University who has taught in America.<\/p>\n

According to an Alexandria University staff website, his full name is Ibrahim Abdel Tawab Samaha, and his specialises in health food control of milk and dairy products.<\/p>\n

\"Hijacked:<\/p>\n

EgyptAir MS181, carrying 62 people, including eight Brits and ten Americans,\u00a0was en-route from Alexandria to Cairo when it was hijacked, forcing it to land on Cyprus.<\/p>\n

Negotiations with Samaha has since resulted in the release of a majority of the hostages, except for the crew and four foreigners, EgyptAir said.<\/p>\n

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Samaha continues to hold the crew and four passengers of unknown nationalities hostage on the tarmac at Larnaca.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The hijacking of the plane, carrying 55 passengers and a crew of seven, was confirmed by EgyptAir on Twitter at 7.40am GMT.<\/p>\n

\"Egyptian<\/p>\n

The plane diverted to Cyprus after the captain, Omar Jamal, was alerted to the presence of a passenger who was wearing an explosive belt.<\/p>\n

Egyptian newsite Youm7 is reporting that Samaha ordered the pilot to fly to Turkey but was told they did not have enough fuel.<\/p>\n

The plane landed at Larnaca airport at around 8.50am (6.50am GMT), police in Cyprus said.<\/p>\n

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\"Ibrahim<\/p>\n

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Cypriot government officials said that after the plane landed, the hijackers demanded that police vehicles move away from the aircraft.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Questions have been raised as to how the hijacker was able to embark on the plane wearing the suicide vest.<\/p>\n

Egyptian authorities promised to tighten airport security in the wake of the downing of a Russian Metrojet airplane in October last year, where all 224 passengers died.<\/p>\n

Investigations later found that explosives had been smuggled onto the Airbus A321-231, most likely at\u00a0Sharm el-Sheikh International Airport, which then crashed minutes after it took off from the Red Sea resort.<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

Source: Daily Mail<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry said in a statement: ‘He’s not a terrorist, he’s an idiot. Terrorists are crazy but they aren’t stupid. This guy is,’ according to Cairo-based journalist\u00a0Ruth Michaelson. Egyptian media reports that Samaha has dual US-Egyptian citizenship, and is a professor of veterinary medicine at Alexandria University who has taught in America. According […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-202473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=202473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202473\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=202473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=202473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=202473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}