Cairo asks Cyprus to extradite EgyptAir plane hijacker

Egypt has asked Cyprus to extradite a man accused of hijacking an EgyptAir flight and diverting it to Larnaca where he was arrested, prosecutors said on Wednesday.

The state prosecutor’s office said in a statement that Egyptian Seif al-Din Mohamed Mostafa, 58, should be remanded into its custody for questioning under a 1996 bilateral extradition treaty.

Mostafa is accused of forcing the Alexandria-to-Cairo flight to divert to Cyprus, where he demanded to see his Cypriot ex-wife, with whom he has children.

Police told the court that Mostafa — described by officials as “psychologically unstable” — faces possible charges of hijacking, kidnapping, reckless and threatening behavior, and breaches of the anti-terror law.

Police prosecutor Andreas Lambrianou said witnesses saw the suspect wearing a belt around his waist stuffed with cylindrical objects connected by wires to what appeared to be a hand-held detonator button.

At one point, the suspect had threatened to detonate the belt if his demands weren’t met, he alleged.

Mostafa will not face any formal charges until a later hearing and only at that point will he be expected to enter a plea.

Most of the 55 passengers on the EgyptAir flight were quickly released after it landed in Larnaca but it took hours of negotiations, including a conversation with his ex-wife, before Mostafa surrendered to police.

“What’s someone supposed to do when he hasn’t seen his wife and children in 24 years and the Egyptian government won’t let you?” the police prosecutor quoted him as telling officers after his arrest.

After several hours in Larnaca, passengers on the flight were flown to Cairo late on Tuesday.

“Fifteen minutes after departure we saw on the screens that the plane was not going to Cairo and it was crossing the sea,” passenger Noha Saleh said on arrival in the Egyptian capital.

“They said it was a technical problem and they needed to go to Cyprus or Greece to fix it… they were professional and their attitude was normal,” she said.

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Concerns were raised about security at Egyptian airports after a Russian airliner was downed on October 31 over the Sinai Peninsula, killing all 224 people on board. The Islamic State group claimed to have smuggled a bomb on board.

The police prosecutor said Cypriot authorities would seek the help of Interpol to discover how the fake suicide belt passed through airport security in Alexandria.

But Egypt’s interior ministry said in a statement that all security measures had been applied.

The accused hijacker and his luggage were scanned, it said, and he had used “non-prohibited belongings” in his handbag “to imply that he was wearing an explosive belt and to threaten the crew and passengers.”