Bartamaha (Wellington):- A Somali refugee was sentenced to nine years in prison Friday after pleading guilty to trying to hijack a small domestic airliner in 2008 in the first such attack in New Zealand.

Asha Ali Abdille, 33, took three knives aboard the flight, which she demanded be diverted to Australia. The pilots refused, saying the airplane, which was flying between the provincial town of Blenheim and the city of Christchurch, both on South Island, didn’t have enough fuel.

Abdille then attacked them and a passenger and demanded the 19-seater airplane fly into the sea. The plane landed safely in the southern city of Christchurch, where she was overpowered by the pilots. It was not made clear in Christchurch High Court why Abdille wanted to go to Australia.

She was initially charged with attempted hijacking, wounding and injuring with intent to injure. As part of her guilty plea to attempted hijacking, prosecutors dropped the other charges.

It was the first time anyone in New Zealand has been convicted of an airplane hijacking offence, which can carry a term of life in prison.

The pilot received cuts to both hands and needed extensive surgery to reattach muscles, tendons and a nerve. He was also cut on his back. The first officer was cut on his foot and a passenger also was wounded.

“The kidnapping of innocent air passengers and flight crew must be met with a strong response from the courts. The community expects nothing less,” prosecutor Pip Currie told the High Court, asking for a minimum 15-year prison term.

At the time of the hijacking Abdille was on bail on charges of threatening to kill and possession of a weapon. She had 27 prior convictions that included threatening to pour petrol on a Red Cross staff member and throwing a bucket of feces over a police officer.

Defence counsel Elizabeth Bulger read a long statement from Abdille, one of 17 children in her family, explaining how she was forced to flee Mogadishu when civil war broke out in 1991. She was alone but met up with her grandfather and was with him when bandits attacked and chopped him to pieces.

She spoke about the struggle of living in New Zealand since 1994 and how she became very unstable when her sister was sent to a women’s refuge. Abdille described herself as “a crazy person” who decided to hijack a plane to get to Australia.

Justice Christine French said Abdille had post traumatic stress disorder, ongoing adjustment difficulties, and behaviour disturbance. She did not fit in anywhere and had developed persecutory beliefs, major depressive episodes and obsessive compulsive disorder.

French said she had substantially reduced the sentence after taking Abdille’s mental health issues into account and her guilty plea a month before the scheduled trial.

The attack sparked a major review of domestic air security and led to tighter screening of passengers and carry-on baggage at the nation’s regional airports.

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Source:-AP.

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