SEVEN armed Iraqi hijackers who demanded political asylum in Britain after seizing a Sudanese plane surrendered yesterday following seven hours of negotiations with police at Stansted Airport.
The Chief Constable of Essex, Mr John Burrow, described the hijackers as "calm and disciplined." He said all 199 passengers on board, including members of the hijackers' families, had been released without harm, although three men had been taken to hospital suffering from heart problems.
"The hijack has been successfully concluded ... The hijackers surrendered to police and have been arrested. They will remain in police custody and the matter of political asylum will now be dealt with by the Home Office," he added.
The Sudanese Airways Airbus 310 was hijacked on Monday night 25 minutes after leaving Khartoum on a flight to the Jordanian capital, Amman. Initially, the hijackers demanded that the plane be diverted to Rome, but the Italian authorities refused permission for it to land.
The plane then flew to Larnaca Airport in Cyprus where the hijackers, who were armed with guns and explosives, threatened to blow up the plane if it was not refuelled and allowed to fly to Heathrow Airport.
British officials agreed, but the plane was diverted to Stansted Airport, which is designated to deal with such situations.
Within an hour of the plane landing at Stansted at 4.25 a.m., Mr Burrow said, three police officers began negotiating with the hijackers through the Sudanese pilot, Capt Abdel Hamid Hidirbi.
Before releasing any of the hostages, the hijackers demanded that representatives of the Red Cross and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees be on stand-by.
The hijackers insisted that Mr Saddiq Saddah, a leader of the Iraqi Community Association in London, be brought to Stansted to act as an intermediary.
After two hours of negotiations 10 passengers, with their hands on their heads, were allowed off the plane. The hijackers then agreed to free all the women, children, sick and elderly at five-minute intervals. By 9 a.m. 100 passengers had been released.
Following a "frantic" police search for Mr Saddah, who was not answering his telephone, he was brought to Stansted. Although the hijackers did not speak to or see him, they immediately surrendered at around noon.
"We had established our integrity and relationship with the hostage-takers by that time, and we assured them that Mr Saddah was here with us and was prepared to witness them coming off the aeroplane. They said, "That's good enough for us, we'll come of.... I think they chose Britain because they saw it possibly as a safe haven," Mr Burrow explained.
About 500 police officers, some of them armed, were involved in the operation. However, officials stressed that neither the army nor the SAS had any role in the negotiations.
Several Conservative MPs called for the hijackers to be deported immediately.
The Home Secretary, Mr Michael Howard, praised Essex police for resolving the situation without the use of force.