Aiming for the Vatican

This was predictable. Turkish hijackers take a plane headed from Albania to Istanbul, and turn it around to aim for the Vatican. They were after the Pope, they said. But the early reporting on it gave conflicting accounts of the hijackers intentions.

Most news sources carried some variation of this report:

Two Turks who were reportedly trying to deliver a message to Pope Benedict XVI to protest his planned trip to Turkey hijacked a Turkish Airlines jet carrying 113 people from Albania to Istanbul on Tuesday, officials said.
 
The deputy governor of Istanbul, Vedat Muftuoglu, said the hijackers stormed into the cockpit about 15 minutes after takeoff from Tirana and told the pilots to fly to Rome. Italian warplanes, however, forced the plane to land at Brindisi. “They told the pilots that they wanted to carry out an act to protest the pope and that they wanted the plane diverted to Rome and that they should not resist,” Muftuoglu said on CNN-Turk television.

Candan Karlitekin, chairman of Turkish Airlines’ board of directors, confirmed Turkish news reports that the aircraft was hijacked by two Turks who wanted to protest Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Turkey next month.

Now look at this Reuters article, and the motive changes.

Turkish television initially quoted police sources as saying the plane had been hijacked in protest at a planned visit to Turkey next month by the Pope, who offended many Muslims with a speech last month linking the spread of the Islamic faith to violence.

But Turkish television later reported one of the hijackers had converted to Christianity and was a conscientious objector.

It said he had sent a letter to the Pope in late August, asking for his help to avoid compulsory military service in Turkey. It quoted the letter as reading: “I am a Christian and I do not want to serve in a Muslim army.”

It that’s not true, it’s at least creative. Maybe the prospect of an Italian prison was less fearsome. Either way, this doesn’t seem to have deterred Pope Benedict.

The Vatican said the Pope was being kept informed about the hijacking but preparations for the trip were still going ahead…

Benedict is due to visit Ankara, Istanbul and the ancient site of Ephesus as a guest of Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer from November 28 to December 1.

That’s one papal trip the world will be watching.