(Turkish) Skyjacker Seeks Pope’s Assistance

[The Sushi Bandit]

http://www.corriere.it/english/articoli/2006/10_Ottobre/04/skyjack.shtml

Hours of fear after threats by Turkish citizen who later surrenders at Brindisi. Mystery surrounds Ekinci’s accomplice and knife.

BRINDISI – Behind every madman lies a suspicion,particularly when the madman in question is Turkish, writes letters to the Pope – who is due to land in Istanbul on 28 November – and manages to hijack an aircraft unarmed. The official version plays down the incidentas the action of a desperate man attempting to avoid arrest for refusing to do military service. At the end of a day of red alerts that forced Italy to implement its national security plan, Hakan Ekinci emerges as an unstable 30-year-old fleeing from a country where he no longer feels at home.“I cannot breathe in a Muslim society”, he wrote on 30 September in a letter to a very special addressee,Benedict XVI.“Dear Pope, I am Hakan Ekinci. I am a Christian and I do not wish to serve in a Muslim army”. The message was published on Ekinci’s personal blog,quite openly. There was no mystery, just a request for help from someone who feels part of a minority.

[The Sushi Bandit]

1. .