A Turkish army deserter who hijacked a Turkish airliner to Italy is seeking asylum because he fears persecution in his Muslim homeland after his conversion to Christianity and wanted Pope Benedict XVI's protection, an Italian prosecutor said Wednesday. | “He fears persecution in his Muslim homeland after his conversion to Christianity and wanted Pope Benedict XVI's protection...” |
"It looks like it was an operation which he had planned for some time, the reasons are of religious nature," Brindisi Prosecutor Giuseppe Giannuzzi told a news conference in this port city where the hijacking ended safely Tuesday night with the hijacker's surrender. "Having taken up the Christian religion, he feared going back to Turkey," said Giannuzzi, who interrogated the suspect after he surrendered.
Turkish officials have said that Hakan Ekinci was being sent back by Albania, where he had been denied asylum, to Turkey aboard the Turkish Airlines Boeing 737-400, with police waiting to arrest him in Istanbul where the 28-year-old deserter and convicted swindler would have landed Tuesday night. |