Turkish hijacker gives up in Italy

BRINDISI, Italy - A Turkish hijacker seeking to communicate with Pope Benedict seized an airliner flying from Albania to Istanbul this morning and diverted it to Italy before surrendering.

All 107 passengers and six crew left the Turkish Airlines plane at Brindisi airport after brief negotiations, Italy's aviation authority ENAC said, adding that police were checking to see if other hijackers were among those on board.

"At the moment one person has given himself up. We are trying to verify whether there was a second hijacker on the aircraft," Antonio Lattarulo, head of ENAC for Brinidisi in southern Italy, told Reuters.

Turkish TV initially quoted police sources as saying the plane had been hijacked in protest at a planned November visit to Turkey by the Pope, who offended many Muslims with a speech last month linking the spread of the Islamic faith to violence.

But Turkish media later identified the hijacker as Hakan Ekinci, a convert to Christianity who had written to the Pope in late August, asking for his help to avoid compulsory military service in Turkey.

Turkey's Dogan News Agency said Ekinci was born in the western Turkish province of Izmir in 1978 and had been convicted of fraud and pickpocketing. It said he travelled to Albania in May this year and did not return.

Dogan quoted from his letter: "Dear Pope, I am Hakan Ekinci. I am a Christian and I never want to serve a Muslim army. I wish you to help me as the spiritual leader of the Christian world."

The Vatican said the Pope was being kept informed about the hijacking but preparations for the November 28-December 1 trip to Turkey were going ahead.

The airliner was flying from the Albanian capital Tirana to Istanbul when the hijacking occurred in Greek airspace at 5.58pm (2.58am NZT). The Boeing 737 was escorted by Greek and Italian military aircraft to Brindisi.

A spokeswoman for ENAC told Reuters during the hijack: "As far as we know, the hijackers want to talk with Italian authorities to send a message to the Pope."

Passengers gave conflicting accounts of whether there was more than one hijacker, but they said they saw no weapons and that no violence was used.

Sadri Abazi, an Albanian member of parliament who was on the plane spoke by mobile phone to an Albanian television station. "As he was leaving the plane, one of the hijackers apologised to the passengers in English and Albanian," he said.

CNN Turk's website said that, of the 107 passengers, 80 were Albanian and five Turkish. Turkish media reported that several beauty queens, from countries including India, were on the flight, returning from a pageant in Albania

Turkey's Transport Minister Binali Yildirim gave one suggestion of how a hijack could have occurred without the use of weapons. "We have information that they showed a package, but we haven't confirmed that," he told CNN Turk.

Pope Benedict is due to visit Ankara, Istanbul and the ancient site of Ephesus as a guest of Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer from November 28 to December 1.

A number of planes have been hijacked to or from Turkey in the past decade, either by Kurdish rebels or hijackers with Chechen or Islamist sympathies.

- REUTERS