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Freed Hijack Hostages Return To Moscow, Istanbul
MOSCOW, March 17 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Around 120 freed hostages on a Russian plane hijacked to Saudi Arabia flew back into Moscow on Saturday to emotional scenes, 24 hours after a bloody rescue operation that ended their two-day ordeal.
The Ilyushin-62 transporting the crew and mainly Russian passengers touched down at Moscow's Vnukovo airport late afternoon.
Also aboard was the body of a 27-year-old air stewardess, Yulia Fomina, killed when Saudi forces stormed the Tupolev plane at Medina airport, ITAR-TASS reported.
In Istanbul meanwhile, 47 Turkish passengers arrived on a Boeing 737 along with the body of a Turkish construction worker, 27-year-old Gursel Kambal.
The Turk, the Russian flight attendant and one of the three hijackers died in the assault Friday on the Russian plane.
Three men identifying themselves as Chechens seized an Istanbul-Moscow flight with 162 passengers and 12 crewmembers on board Thursday and forced the pilot to divert the plane to the holy city of Medina, in Saudi Arabia.
As the returning passengers passed through the Moscow arrivals hall, where a crowd of journalists had massed, only a few agreed to speak, many in tears and clearly in shock.
Nadezhda, 53, said: "The most frightening moment was when the aircraft was in the air. And when it landed at Medina people just couldn't breathe." The air conditioning had been switched off.
Deputy Prime Minister Valentina Matviyenko, responsible for social affairs, thanked the captain of the Vnukovo Airlines jet, Nikolai Vinogradov, for his brave conduct during the hijacking crisis.
"You behaved courageously, heroically and very professionally. Thanks to your actions, a worse tragedy was avoided," she said as she met the plane in footage broadcast by RTR public television.
The crew held onto the handle of the cockpit door for nearly 24 hours to prevent the hijackers getting in, the navigator told RIA-Novosti news agency Saturday.
Matviyenko also said that the dead stewardess could be decorated. The Russian government had described the stewardess' death as the "work of Chechen terrorists."
According to a freed hostage, however, the flight attendant died from gunfire from Saudi forces assaulting the plane and was not knifed by hijackers as claimed by Moscow officials. The Kremlin on Friday said that one of hijackers had slit the throat of the flight attendant.
"She got a bullet in the head during the assault. She died within five minutes," passenger Svetlana Yarosh said.
Passenger witness statements in the last 24 hours place the deaths of the flight attendant and the Turkish construction worker, Kambal, on Saudi forces assaulting the flight on the tarmac in Medina.
Before leaving, all the freed passengers and crew were interviewed by FSB (ex-KGB) officers and prosecution investigators.
Yulia Babayeva, the wife of one freed hostage, expressed relief that her ordeal was finally over.
"They called me from Turkey as soon as the plane was hijacked. I can't believe my husband is alive. I am so happy this nightmare is over," she said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday asked for the prompt extradition of the two remaining Chechen hijackers.
"I hope that questions surrounding bringing these criminals before Russian justice will be settled as soon as possible," Putin said in a message sent to Saudi King Fahd, according to a statement released by the Kremlin.
Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz, whose country stands accused in Russia of supporting Muslim Chechen separatists, said the request would be settled through the appropriate diplomatic channels.
"We reject terrorist acts whatever their source," he said in an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper, adding: "The hijackers had no clear demands to determine their motives.
"I gave the order for special forces to mount the assault in case the hijackers surprised us with an unexpected action. What we feared most was that they blow up the plane with explosives after they insinuated they had some," said Prince Nayef.
The three Chechens were armed with a kitchen knife and a hammer, according a freed Moldovan hostage.
In Turkey, the interior ministry denied reports that it had received a prior security warning from Russian authorities over two of the men who hijacked the plane shortly after take-off from Istanbul.
The Tupolev, meanwhile, whose fuselage was damaged in the violent end to the hostage drama, was to return to Moscow from Medina on Sunday, Vnukovo Airlines' director Alexander Klimov told ITAR-TASS.
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