Vietnamese hijacker sentenced to 20 years

Vietnamese hijacker sentenced to 20 years

HANOI (Reuter): Ho Chi Minh City's People Court has sentenced a Vietnamese to 20 years in jail for trying to hijack an Indonesian plane by threatening to set himself on fire, the official newspaper Saigon Giai Phong reported yesterday.

Van Viet Hoai Niem Tu, 46, attempted to hijack a plane belonging to Indonesia's Garuda International airline last May when he and 109 other Vietnamese boatpeople were being repatriated to Vietnam, the newspaper said.

Tu was convicted and sentenced on Tuesday, it added. He had left Vietnam in 1990 and volunteered to return last April after his application to resettle in a third country was refused.

Tu bought fuel, a lighter and maps before leaving Indonesia with the aim of hijacking the plane to Australia, the court heard.

"Forty-five minutes after the plane took off ... Tu opened the cockpit door, poured the fuel on his body and threatened (to set himself on fire) if the pilot did not change the flight route," the newspaper said, quoting the indictment.

Security guards overpowered Tu and he was arrested when the plane landed safely at Tan Son Nhat Airport in Ho Chi Minh City.

Vietnam's best-known hijacking occurred in 1992, when a dissident hijacked a leased Vietnam Airlines' Airbus flying from Bangkok to Vietnam and forced the crew to circle low over Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, minutes before the plane was scheduled to land.

He dropped leaflets from the cockpit urging people to overthrow the Hanoi government, then parachuted out. The plane landed safely and the hijacker was captured a few hours later. He was also sentenced to 20 years in jail.