'It has to be the best selfie ever': Brit explains why he posed for photo with EgyptAir hijacker

By now, you might have seen the photo doing the rounds of the British man who posed for a photo with the EgyptAir hijacker.

The pic, taken by a flight attendant, shows Ben Innes, who is originally from Leeds but lives in Aberdeen, standing next to Seif Eldin Mustafa who is wearing what turned out to be a fake explosive belt.

Innes was one of three passengers and four crew members held hostage by Mustafa after he hijacked the flight bound for Cairo from Alexandria, forcing it to land at Larnaca Airport in Cyprus. He was later arrested and is due in court later today.

Innes appears to have posted the photo that shows him standing next to a Whatsapp group with the caption:

"You know your boy doesn’t fuck about!! Turn on the news lad!!!"

Ben Innes from #Aberdeen poses for a picture with #EgyptAir #MS181 hijacker. pic.twitter.com/ywdGYuDWwm

— Paul Smith (@PaulAtVPZ) March 29, 2016

The health and safety auditor, 26, explained to the Sun that he doesn’t know why decided to get a photo but that "it has to be the best selfie ever":

"I’m not sure why I did it, I just threw caution to the wind while trying to stay cheerful in the face of adversity. I figured if his bomb was real I’d nothing to lose anyway, so took a chance to get a closer look at it.

"I got one of the cabin crew to translate for me and asked him if I could do a selfie with him. He just shrugged OK, so I stood by him and smiled for the camera while a stewardess did the snap. It has to be the best selfie ever."

"After about half an hour at Larnaca I asked for a photo with him as we were sitting around waiting. I thought, why not? If he blows us all up it won’t matter anyway."

And it seems, aside from people’s obvious bemusement as to why he would take that risk, most are annoyed that it’s being referred to in the media as a selfie.

That was not a selfie, it was a photograph. Selfie involve the use of your own arms (and the occasional stick).

— Sarah McCartney 🌳☕ 🖖🏻⛅🌍📚✏🧪 (@SarahMcCartney) March 30, 2016

Not a selfie, but this might be the greatest picture of a Brit in living memory pic.twitter.com/dupCkuvYIU

— Amol Rajan (@amolrajan) March 29, 2016

Even Ben’s mother agrees. As she told the Telegraph:

"All we can say is that the picture is clearly not a selfie as everyone has been describing it. You can clearly see that it is not Ben who is taking the picture. He’s in it but he’s not taking it."

So there you go.