Israeli denies planning El Al hijack
An Israeli Arab student accused of trying to hijack an El Al flight today denied planning to seize control of the plane and crash it into a Tel Aviv skyscraper.
Tawfiq Fukra, 23, said that during the November 17 flight from Tel Aviv to Istanbul, he had a dispute with a flight attendant who yelled at him.
“I shouted back and the security guards pounced on me, and I fell to the ground, and I don’t have any more memory of what happened,” he told the Haaretz newspaper.
The security guards claimed that Fukra pulled a small knife on them.
During an interrogation with Istanbul police, Fukra confessed to the allegations, including that he was planning to hijack the aircraft and crash it as the September 11 hijackers had done.
But in interviews with Israeli newspapers published today, he said he confessed because the Turkish interrogators threatened to castrate him.
He said he wants to be extradited to stand trial in Israel, but Israeli authorities have not yet requested his transfer.
“I didn’t intend to hijack the plane. I didn’t intend to blow it up, nor cause it to crash into buildings in Israel,” Fukra told Haaretz in answer to written questions presented to him by his lawyer who visited him in his Istanbul prison cell.
“I don’t even have a driver’s licence, so how do they want me to fly a plane,” he told the Yediot Ahronot newspaper.
A student in an Israeli college, Fukra told the newspaper he does not belong to any of the Palestinian factions currently involved in fighting against Israeli occupation, but has been active in promoting Israeli Arab rights at his college.
Several Israeli Arabs have been charged with belonging to Palestinian militant groups and with assisting them with their 26-month-old conflict with Israel. The arrests have made relations tense between Israel’s Arab and Jewish populations.
Fukra said the trip to Istanbul was his first flight on a plane.
He said he was nervous and edgy after a long interrogation at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport - nearly all Israeli Arabs and many foreigners endure lengthy security procedures at the airport.
Fukra said he got up from his seat before the landing and that the flight attendant yelled at him.
Although he admitted having a small penknife with him on the flight, he said he could not remember whether he was holding it during the argument with the flight attendant.
He also said he did not recall saying that he was attacking the stewardess due to the suffering of his Palestinian brothers.
Fukra has been held in an Istanbul prison. He said he answered “yes” when interrogators asked if he planned to hijack the plane and ram it into a building, just like in New York.
“Between seven and 10 interrogators questioned me,” he said. “They pressured and threatened me and told me that they castrate anyone who doesn’t cooperate with them. So, I told them anything they wanted to hear.”
